


Act Like You Know

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Betrayal, Character Death, Chelsea FC, Crime Fighting, Crimes & Criminals, Denmark National Team, F/M, Guilt, Liverpool F.C., M/M, Murder, Organized Crime, Real Madrid CF, Revenge, Spain, Terrorism, Terrorists, Undercover Missions, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-02
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-07 05:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 53,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1886172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sergio Ramos is a special agent. Fernando Torres is sentenced for life. Sergio's bosses need him to infiltrate a terrorist group based in Liverpool and promise him freedom in exchange of help, while Sergio is assigned to keep an eye on him. In reality, the plan is to kill Fernando once they get what they want. Only that nor Fernando, nor Sergio know about it...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I started this fic as a fill for a prompt, then I lost the document with it so it was on hiatus for a long time. Now I'm trying to complete it because I managed to recover the document.
> 
> If it's too transparent that I am a Liverpool fan and hate Chelsea IRL, I apologize.
> 
> I also apologize for any incorrect information, mainly concerning the structure of British police. I'm not from the UK and I know almost nothing about how the police forces work there. I take a lot of author's license here.

José Mourinho was sitting in the reception hall of the English Interpol headquarters in London. Everything around him was impeccably clean and organized, from the leather sofa he was sitting in to the perfectly ironed blouse of the woman behind the reception desk who was now talking on the phone.

“Yes. Yes, I will tell him.”

She came up to José, her high heels sounding loud on the marble floor.

“You can come up, Mr. Mourinho. The lift is around the corner. It‘s in the fifth floor.”

José groaned, which was his usual way of saying ‘thank you’, and headed to the lift. It took mere seconds to arrive to the fifth floor, but when he found himself in another reception hall, he felt his patience wearing thin.

“Mr. Abramovich has a very important phone call,” another secretary informed him. “If you would please wait here. Can I offer you anything in the meanwhile?”

José would need a glass of scotch, but before the meeting with his new boss it probably wouldn’t be a good idea. 

“No, thank you.”

The secretary nodded and returned to her desk. After about ten minutes, the phone on the desk rang and she picked up.

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

She hung up and got up.

“Mr. Abramovich will receive you now,” she announced and led José towards the polished door with a golden plate which read ‘Roman Abramovich, ICPO Secretary-General’. 

The secretary opened the door and stepped aside. 

“Mr. Mourinho is here, sir.”

The man behind the desk lifted his head from some files.

“Thank you.”

She nodded and closed the door behind her. Roman Abramovich got up and shook José’s hand.

“Welcome to London, Mr. Mourinho,” he said. “We are very glad that you are finally here.” 

“It’s my pleasure, Mr. Abramovich,” José said. 

It was really his pleasure. The last year in Madrid with the bunch of incompetent, rebellious idiots who had no respect for him whatsoever was hell. He was delighted to be finally back in London where his career had once gotten a real boost. He even sometimes wished he had never left. But now he was back and a great position was awaiting him. In London they knew that this work required real, competent and resolute men. Which José knew he was.

“Sit down, please. We still have time before the meeting starts. I invited you for earlier than the others because I wanted to talk to you.”

“Sure,” José said and sat down.

Abramovich put the files aside and clasped his hands.

“Look, Mr. Mourinho, we asked for you because the situation is really unbearable now. We constantly have the gentlemen from the Scotland Yard and other police units here asking for help and you understand that we cannot answer to it unless we create a specialized team. I turned to you because you already have experience with working here in London and because your results and your references speak for themselves.”

It sounded like beautiful music to José’s ears.

“The main problem that we will discuss during today’s meeting when the gentlemen from the Metropolitan Police service and the Merseyside Police arrive, is the terrorist group that is currently based in Liverpool. We decided to opt for some new tactics and that is where we will need your help.”

José nodded. Terrorists were his specialty. That was why he found slightly deceiving that terrorists feared him but in Madrid every secretary dared to roll their eyes after he asked them to do something.

“Because I know that you are the one who will not be afraid to use some methods that are... let’s say... non-standard.”

José raised his brows, but then nodded again. Screw the methods, he had his dream job and wasn’t going to stick to any pathetic rules just to lose it. The phone on Abramovich’s desk rang. He picked it up and listened.

“Alright. Send them in.”

The door opened and four men walked in. Both Abramovich and José stood up.

“Gentlemen, this is Mr. Mourinho whom I called up from Madrid to help us with this miserable situation. Mr. Mourinho, let me introduce Mr. John Terry, the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, Mr. Frank Lampard, the Deputy-Commissioner, Mr. Brendan Rodgers, the Chief constable of the Merseyside Police, and Detective Ashley Cole who had led the investigation until now and who will introduce us, and mainly Mr. Mourinho, to the case.”

After they exchanged some pleasantries, which already disgusted José enough, they gathered around a long table and Detective Cole switched on a laptop and a projector. 

“So far, we managed to figure out the bases of their organization,” he said and projected a copy of a crime record. “This is their leader, Steven Gerrard... well, he became the leader only recently after we got their previous leader, certain Jamie Carragher. Gerrard is the head of the group, but you won’t ever prove him anything, it seems. He washes his hands clean of everything. All we have on him are minor offenses in the past, nothing more than assault charges from about five years ago.”

Another record appeared on the wall. 

“Daniel Agger, his right hand. What Gerrard thinks, he puts into action.”

The more he listened, the less José understood why they needed him or a special team. Alright, they had a terrorist group here, probably a well organized one, responsible for several attacks, that was smuggling weapons over the borders, but there were hundreds of such groups. Why Interpol was involved, he also had no idea.

“The latest results of our investigation show that there could be a connection between this group and some organizations in South America,” Detective Cole concluded.

So that was why.

“I suppose you have a plan how to find out, as Mr. Abramovich already told me,” José said.

“In reality, it’s Mr. Rodgers’ plan...” Detective Cole said with an unsure look at the Merseyside Police Chief constable and his bosses.

“Yes, it is,” Rodgers said. “I say it’s high time we stopped observing from the outside. We need someone inside that group.”

“So you mean an agent?” José asked with interest.

“Not really,” Abramovich intervened. “I’m not willing to put any of our agents at the risk. Those guys are not dumb... well, certainly not all of them. You send a policeman working undercover to them, Gerrard knows in three seconds and in another two Agger fires a bullet in his head. We need someone they will trust... at least for some time.”

“And you have someone like this, I suppose?”

He couldn’t miss the smirk Terry and Lampard exchanged, while Detective Cole looked like he wouldn’t be angry if his role in the case ended right here and now. Nevertheless, he projected another record. José frowned skeptically. If this... this freckled kid was supposed to be their secret weapon, then probably there was something wrong with either him or the Scotland Yard. 

“Fernando José Torres Sanz,” Detective Cole said. “Currently serving a life sentence in Wakefield.”

“Did he rob a toy shop?” José snorted.

“Three banks,” Detective Cole said with a serious face. “During the third robbery, killed four guards, held hostages, used a child hostage to get away and finally shot two police officers on the run before being arrested.”

“Impressive,” José said in a flat voice. 

“There is a reason for this choice, though,” Rodgers said, setting his glass back on the table. “He had an accomplice. Certain José Manuel Reina Páez. Whom we have seen a while earlier as a part of Gerrard’s group.”

“That makes sense,” José nodded.

“Perfect,” Abramovich said. “What I will want from you, Mr. Mourinho... provide me a competent agent who will be constantly keeping an eye on him and who will be a link between him and us. We don’t want this freckled monster running on the loose around here. And just in case he’s seen with that person, we need to make sure it’s someone nobody knows around here.”

José nodded. 

“I know of a perfect man,” he said.

Abramovich smiled contentedly. Terry, Lampard, Rodgers and Cole got up to leave. When José was about to get up as well, Abramovich turned to him.

“If you would wait for a moment, Mr. Mourinho, I still have something to tell you.”

They waited for the other men to leave. Only then Abramovich came closer to José and folded his arms.

“I think you’ve already understood that I couldn’t tell you all in front of them.”

José smirked.

“And I thought you knew me well enough to understand that you didn’t need to explain everything to me.”

“So we are clear?” Abramovich asked.

“Of course we are. I can assure you that he won’t be running around here for more than will be absolutely necessary.”

 

***

 

José’s day started ridiculously bad. He only managed to sit down in his new office when the door flew open without him hearing a knock, and a guy with reddish brown curls that looked suspiciously like the mop José’s wife was using to wipe the floor, stormed inside, carrying a pile of envelopes in one hand and a cup in the other. It was then that José remembered the guy was probably his secretary that he inherited from his predecessor.

“The post,” he announced and threw the envelopes on the desk, right where José was planning to set his leather writing pad. “And coffee.”

“I didn’t order coffee!” José growled.

“You don’t need to order it, it’s free!” the guy grinned.

José’s jaw tightened and he looked at him.

“Listen, you...”

“David Luiz, sir,” the guy beamed.

“Listen, Luiz. If once more you set even one curl of that thing you probably call hair in my office, without you knocking and me giving you permission to enter, I will personally make sure that the next time you serve someone coffee will be in McDonald’s, is that clear?”

“Sure, sir!” Luiz grinned and danced back to his office.

He either didn’t get any of what José was saying, or the prospect of working at McDonald’s instead of José’s office was really appealing for him. 

José made a mental note to kick that individual out as soon as he would have time to find a new secretary.

 

***

 

Five minutes later he was literally fuming, and the curly secretary wasn’t to blame this time. He was on the phone with the head of the Madrid unit, Florentino Pérez. And the discussion didn’t go like he had planned. At all.

“What do you mean you’re not giving me Modrić?” José shouted. 

“Well, don’t take it bad, José,” Florentino said. “But the last time I gave you six of my men, you returned two, suffering from severe PTSD on top. Modrić is one of my best guys and if I lose him, the whole team I built around him will just fall apart.”

When did Florentino build a team around Modrić was a mystery for José.

“I can send you someone else,” Florentino offered. “Who is not busy at the moment.”

“I swear, Florentino, if you send me...”

“Ramos has just returned from holiday!” Florentino said enthusiastically. 

“He wasn’t on holiday, I sent him off-duty because he is an incompetent...”

“Let’s not play with words, shall we?” the false sweetness was practically dripping from the phone right into José’s ear. “Ramos is an experienced agent and an international duty will only do him good.”

Sure, José thought, only it will not do _me_ good.

“He can be there tomorrow.”

“Fine,” José sighed. “Tell him not to forget his gun and possibly not make himself noticed by everyone before he gets here.”

Without any more comments, Florentino hung up. José threw the phone on the table, flipped through the pile of crumpled papers that David Luiz had previously called ‘post’ and then got up. It was time to get some more information than he had gotten the previous day. If Abramovich wasn’t telling the heads of the Scotland Yard everything, José had no illusions of getting all the information from him either.

 

***

 

Special agent Sergio Ramos got off the private plane and looked around, immediately cursing at the London weather. Only two days ago he was enjoying the sun on the beach. Now it was raining cats and dogs and he was glad that he had decided to take a jacket with him. And the weather wasn’t the only reason why he was in a bad mood. 

If he was to be honest, to find out that he was to work under Mourinho again after they had all celebrated his departure was really deceiving. Iker, their psychologist, even offered him free phone consultations, just in case his mental health would be at risk.

He had spent the last few hours reading the files Mourinho had sent him. It wasn’t a very amusing material and Sergio was sure that it wasn’t only his mental health that would be at risk.

Remembering not to attract any attention, Sergio caught a taxi and went to the hotel previously booked by Mourinho’s people. He still had about two hours until the meeting with Mourinho and he wanted to at least take a shower and make himself presentable, because Mourinho hated when people arrived to meetings looking untidy. Well, Sergio himself hated looking untidy. At least one thing he and Mourinho had in common.

 

***

 

Two hours later he was waiting in front of Mourinho’s office, already dressed up in a suit. Mourinho’s secretary couldn’t tell him when Mourinho would receive him or whether he even knew he was there, but he offered Sergio coffee, so Sergio gave up and accepted. Finally it turned out to be possibly the best coffee he ever had.

In twenty minutes, the door to Mourinho’s office opened and Mourinho stormed out, not stopping for even a moment and heading to the elevator. 

“Come on, Ramos!” he yelled over his shoulder. “Abramovich is waiting downstairs!”

Sergio sighed and jogged to the elevator to catch up with Mourinho.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To Wakefield,” Mourinho said. “We’re going to have a chat with our new friend.”

 

***

 

Senior Prison Officer Branislav Ivanović carefully looked through the peephole and then unlocked the door.

“Torres, you have a visit!” he announced in a bored voice.

The man on the bed lifted his head.

“I think you’re in the wrong cell,” he said. “I don’t get visits.”

Branislav was in a bad mood. He imagined the unfinished sandwich he had to leave in his office and crossed his arms.

“Will you lift that ass off the bed or should I help you?” he said through gritted teeth. 

His dangerous voice worked as always. There was no second warning in his case and the prisoners knew that. They also knew that if he wanted to make someone’s life a hell, the word ‘hell’ got a whole new meaning.

He stepped to the side, letting the prisoner pass.

“I don’t have all day!” he barked, shoving him forwards as soon as he closed the door again.

There was no response from the prisoner. Branislav found it a bit frustrating. He hated the resigned ones. He preferred either the problematic guys who were giving him plenty of reasons to show them who was harder, or the sissies, because they were easy to exploit. There was always something Branislav wanted that they could give him. 

This whole thing was frustrating, in fact. It wasn’t a visiting day. Just because three guys in suits wanted to see this guy he had to renounce on his lunch break. On top of everything, they requested a closed room, not the visiting room. 

He led the prisoner in and remained standing at the door. 

“Leave us alone, officer,” one of the men said. 

“I can’t leave the room, sir!” Branislav replied. 

He knew he was in trouble the moment he finished the sentence.

“You will now leave this room or your job, decide now!” the man growled.

Branislav opened the door, walked out of the room and banged it shut behind him. Whatever was going on in there was really weird.

 

***

 

Sergio was looking at the man in front of him. He looked a lot different than at the photographs he had seen before. His hair was darker as he obviously had other things to do here than to bleach it, and he was also paler, so the freckles weren’t so visible. What surprised Sergio the most was that he had thought he would look older. The photographs were obviously a few years old, and Sergio knew from experience that in prison people aged twice as fast. But this man didn’t look a day older. Just the sparkle Sergio remembered from the pictures was gone from his eyes.

“Would you sit down, Mr. Torres?” Abramovich said.

It took the man a while to react. It has been probably a long time since someone last called him ‘Mr. Torres’. Then he sat on the empty chair, opposite to Sergio.

“We won’t beat around it,” Abramovich said. “Remember your friend, José Manuel Reina?”

Torres just looked at him. It obviously wasn’t really a question.

“Know what he’s doing now?” Abramovich asked.

“Serving his time?” Torres asked in a flat voice.

Sergio frowned. The voice kind of didn’t fit him.

“I hate to tell you, but he’s not,” Abramovich said. “He only got five years and appealed after two and a half, so he’s happily running around England again.”

When there was no reaction, Abramovich continued.

“To be more precise, he is running around Liverpool. He got together with a certain group led by Steven Gerrard... oh, I see the name is familiar.” 

“Everyone knows Gerrard,” Torres said, again in the flat voice.

“Of course. What interests us is that Reina knows him better than us. And we think that it is the right time you and Reina got back together.” 

Torres frowned. 

“What do you mean?”

“What would you say to a deal?” Abramovich asked. “You do us a favor, we do you a favor. For how long have you been here, Mr. Torres?”

“I stopped counting.”

Abramovich smirked.

“I will tell you. Next month it will be five years. If you’re already so desperate that you stopped counting, let me remind you that there are about fifty more years ahead of you. No possibility of parole, if I remember well.”

“What do you want from me?” 

Abramovich looked delighted. The dialogue was finally getting somewhere.

“Let’s say that there are places where we can’t get. Where we would need a... connection.”

“You want me to infiltrate Gerrard’s group.”

“Yes.” 

“It’s impossible.”

Abramovich chuckled.

“Nothing is impossible, Mr. Torres. If you reassess this option and judge it possible, I will judge possible the option of you appealing for the whole life tariff being quashed, and you being granted the parole.”

Sergio blinked when Abramovich’s words were met with silence. He knew everyone would jump on such opportunity. Hell, he would jump on it the second Abramovich would say it.

Abramovich leaned over the table.

“I am offering you freedom for your help, Mr. Torres.”

“I understand,” Torres said calmly. “How long do I have to decide?”

Abramovich looked at his watch. 

“I can give you five minutes.”

 

***

 

Steven Gerrard banged his fist into the table. A few of the men around him jumped up. 

“Out of all people you sent Carroll?” he shouted.

“Excuse me, but the ‘out of all people’ part doesn’t fit,” one of the men said.

“How come, Agger?”

“I didn’t have anyone else at the moment. Suárez is in South America with Coates, sealing up a few deals. We need Kelly and Škrtel here, and I didn’t want to send any of the youngsters.”

“But I didn’t ask for toasts and milk, I asked for explosives, and you just don’t send Carroll for anything more important than a screwdriver!” Gerrard shouted. “If he fucks up, I swear nobody will know what piece of your bodies belongs to who so they will have to bury you in one coffin!” 

“We simply need more people!” Agger said. “After they got Enrique and Allen...”

“But I can’t really place an advertisement in The Sun, can I?” Gerrard snapped. “Find me more people, then! Reliable people, not snitches and not donkeys like Carroll!”

Suddenly a klaxon sounded from the street. A young boy from the group came to the window, carefully drew the curtain aside and looked out. 

“It’s Carroll,” he announced. 

Gerrard pursed his lips. 

“This time you were lucky.”

 

***

 

Roman Abramovich was a generous man. He said five minutes but actually gave Torres a twenty seconds bonus. He understood that such decision deserved to be thought through.

“Time is up,” he announced then and leaned back in the chair. “So?”

Torres looked at him, then his eyes flickered to Sergio for a moment, like he was trying to understand who he was and why he was even there, when it was Abramovich doing all the talking. Mourinho he completely ignored.

“I take it,” he said then.

Abramovich looked at Mourinho and smirked.

“How do you want me to do it, though?” Torres asked. “You can’t just let me go like that, Gerrard would immediately know you’re behind it.”

“Of course not,” Mourinho finally spoke. “You will not just go like that. You will escape.”

“From Wakefield?” Torres raised his brows. “This is a Category A prison.” 

“The Prison Service will decide to transfer you to Whitemoor. During the transport, you will escape. Agent Ramos will help you with that.”

Torres’ eyes again flew to Sergio, who tried hard to pretend that he wasn’t hearing about it for the first time.

“He will be helping you with everything. He will be a connection between you and us. And he will ensure that you...”

“Don’t forget about our deal, “ Torres nodded. “Got that.”

 

***

 

José stepped out of the elevator and headed to his office. He liked the situation less and less, and he wasn’t going to go with it until he knew what he wanted to know. Though he wasn’t sure if the things hadn’t gotten too far for him to back up.

“Coffee, sir?”

“Fuck you, Luiz.”

“Sure, sir. Anytime.”

José stopped in his tracks, desperately trying to figure out whether his Brazilian secretary’s English was really that bad or if he was in fact making fun of José, but then he decided that an international mission involving terrorists still had bigger priority than a curly haired Brazilian idiot, so he just banged the door of his office behind him.

That Abramovich wanted Torres dead after they got what they wanted, that he understood. That the Scotland Yard wasn’t to know about it, that was clear. But he wanted to know why he couldn’t tell Ramos about it. Mainly if he was supposed to be the one to fire the gun.

 


	2. Two

Fernando got in the van and looked around him. He was feeling strangely excited and blamed himself for it. He had thought that over the years, he managed to come to the resignation, that he’d stop hoping that he would see those walls from the outside ever again. And yet in some hours he could be walking around freely. Of course, there would be this Agent Ramos, but he didn’t look like anyone Fernando couldn’t figure out.

Looking at the guards, the driver and two other convicts, he wondered how many of them actually knew about the plan. Judging from the way Abramovich caught even his own people off-guard with it, Fernando wouldn’t be surprised if nobody in the van had an idea something was going to happen.

The guard closed the door and the driver started the engine. Fernando tried to play along, tried to look his usual bored self, but couldn’t stop his eyes from frantically searching around him. Well, even if the guards had no idea something was up, they wouldn’t think it was suspicious as they were used to weirder things the inmates were doing, and if they did, they wouldn’t care.

The ride was calm while they were going through London. Fernando would almost think that nothing was going to happen, that Abramovich lied and he would just end up in Whitemoor and rot in there. But there were subtle things that were telling him something was up. There was just one car accompanying them, while he knew usually high security prisons sent at least two. He also noticed the guards weren’t talking to each other. It hinted to the fact that they didn’t know each other well. It was strange. Normally Fernando knew the guards were quite gossipy. One of them was a woman Fernando had never seen before. The obscene comments at her from the other inmates were met with her stern face, like she didn’t even hear them.

Suddenly there was a loud crash, the driver cursed and the brakes screeched. Fernando instinctively lifted his handcuffed hands and tried to grab onto the seat in front of him to have at least some support. He had a slight advantage. He was expecting something like this to happen.

The woman jumped out of her seat and before Fernando could even blink, she pulled out her gun and shot the two other guards right in the heart. The driver turned to her with a shocked expression and lifted his hands, showing that he wasn’t armed. She shot him in the head without a single word. The other two inmates were looking at her in disbelief and at the same time Fernando was sure they were wondering who was at the receiving end of this wonderful plan. The woman didn’t spare them more than one glance as she shot them as well and then finally put her gun down.

By the time Agent Ramos jumped in the van, she was already unlocking the chain attaching Fernando to the two now dead convicts.

“You... you shot them all!” Ramos gasped.

“Such was the order,” she said calmly.

“Whose order?”

“Abramovich’s, or whose orders do you think I listen to?” she snapped and grabbed Fernando’s arm, pulling him up while leaving his wrists still cuffed. “Let’s get out of here, the time is running.”

They jumped out of the van and Ramos headed to a black jeep that Fernando suspected he used to block the van. Then Fernando felt a gun being pressed to his side. He looked at the woman who was leading him to the car.

“Try something and I shoot you!” she hissed. “I don’t like your face and I don’t like the idea of you running around my city, but if such is the order, then let it be it. But I can shoot you if you try to escape. I beg you to give me the chance.”

“I would be quite against myself if I tried to escape,” Fernando said.

“Fine, then get in the car!”

She put the gun back in the holster and looked around carefully. Ramos started the car.

“How long do we have?” he asked.

“We’re on time,” she said curtly.

Once the car started moving, she took off the police hat and shirt and threw them in a paper bag. Then she grabbed a cell phone and dialed a number.

“It’s me. Everything going according to the plan, Mr. Abramovich. We’re heading to Liverpool now. I will keep you informed.”

 

***

 

They stopped in front of an old building in a secluded area of the city. Sergio had already been there once. Technically, it was to become his new place. He wasn’t too happy about it. It was far from his comfortable apartment in Madrid.

When they arrived to the apartment in first floor, the woman finally unlocked Fernando’s handcuffs and threw a plastic bag at him.

“Get changed!” she barked and walked out of the room.

Fernando took the clothes out of the plastic bag and started to take off his sweatpants.

“Who is it?” he asked Sergio.

Sergio realized that he was just blatantly staring at the other man, and turned around quickly.

“Secret Agent Eva Carneiro,” he said, looking out of the window.

“Are we going to have her behind our backs all the time?”

“No, she’s going back to London tonight.”

“She’s tough,” Fernando noted, pulling a white tee over his head.

“Yeah, she is.”

“And what’s your name?”

Sergio looked at him in surprise.

“Well, if I call you Agent Ramos, we are not going to get very far,” Fernando chuckled.

“Ah, sure. I’m Sergio.”

“Sergio...” Fernando repeated.

To Sergio his name sounded strange from his lips. He wasn’t sure he was ever going to get used to it, and he was supposed to hear it quite often now.

“So what’s the plan now, Sergio?”

“You are going to stay here now. Then in two or three days when it’s safer, you will contact Reina.”

“You will be keeping me company in the meanwhile, I assume?”

“I will be making sure that you don’t go where you’re not supposed to go, yes.”

For some reason, Fernando smirked at Sergio’s stern voice.

“I can’t really go anywhere. Isn’t the police already looking for me all over England?” he asked.

“They were looking for you also before you got arrested, weren’t they?” Sergio asked. “So I think you have some talent for fooling them.”

“You bet,” Agent Carneiro’s voice sounded from the door. “Took us a year to catch him. One piece of advice before I go. Don’t let his face fool you, Ramos.”

Sergio glanced at her.

“I’m not dumb, nor a newbie.”

“You wouldn’t be the first one,” Carneiro said calmly. “Probably also not the last one. Alright, I’m going.”

“I thought you could at least bring us hamburgers,” Sergio whined.

Carneiro narrowed her eyes.

“Bring them yourself, Ramos.”

She headed to the door. On the doorstep she turned around once more.

“Oh, I almost forgot!” she said and threw the handcuffs at Sergio. “I think you know what they are for.”

She banged the door behind her, leaving Sergio feeling like he was a raw recruit, not a special agent. He was definitely glad to have her gone.

 

***

 

Sergio switched on the old TV and flipped through the channels until he found the BBC.

“The BBC exaggerates,” he heard behind him and in the next moment, Fernando sat in the armchair next to him.

“They are supposed to be impartial,” Sergio said.

“Yeah, but they exaggerate. They made me a monster.”

“And aren’t you?”

“You think I am?”

Sergio snorted.

“I read your file. In the States you’d get the chair.”

“What a pity we’re not in the States, then,” Fernando spat.

Sergio rolled his eyes and looked back at the screen. The news at ten were just starting. As Sergio expected, the shootings were the main news of the day. He prayed for everything to go smoothly and for Carneiro not to have made any mistakes. Even though he knew that she haven’t made any. She was too good for that.

“You work for Interpol, don’t you?” Fernando asked.

“Obviously,” Sergio groaned.

“So either way, you’re not getting anything from this.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you can’t really arrest anyone. Even if you get Gerrard and his group, the English police will arrest them. They’ll be the heroes. Them, and your boss, obviously. No way that egoist will even mention your name.”

Sergio crossed his arms and looked at Fernando.

“You think I do my work for fame?” he asked.

Fernando looked at him impishly.

“I don’t know why you do your work. I suppose you have some vision of a better world and you want to serve justice, the usual shit.”

Sergio took a breath, but then he just switched off the TV and got up. He was irritated, tired and hungry. He actually expressed the last aloud. Fernando chuckled.

“If I remember, Agent Carneiro told you to bring hamburgers.”

“Yeah, I suppose there’s not much you can get in this part of the city at this hour.”

Sergio looked around the room hesitantly. Everyone he’s ever worked with kept telling him he was too carefree, too trusting and too incautious. Iker had tried to explain them that there was little Sergio could do about it, but truth was that if he wanted to keep his work, he had to work on it. Which meant he couldn’t just walk away now and leave a guy who had killed six people, behind.

“Go to the window!” he said.

Fernando looked at him, then glanced over in the direction of the window lazily before getting up. There was an almost condescending smile on his lips when he looked at the old radiator under the window.

“This is not necessary, Sergio,” he said.

“It’s more than necessary,” Sergio snapped. “I’m not losing my job because of you. Sit down.”

Actually, he was quite sure he wouldn’t just lose his job. Mourinho would chop his head off.

Fernando sat down next to the radiator. His expression was now almost amused. It was definitely the most amusing thing in the last few years for him, Sergio was sure of that. It seemed like Sergio himself was amusing. When he leaned over him, Fernando lifted his hands and let Sergio cuff his wrists to the radiator. For some reason, it made Sergio feel sort of bad.

“Don’t forget your phone,” Fernando said.

“What?” Sergio frowned.

“Your phone,” Fernando nodded towards the table on which Sergio’s cell phone lay. “If it rang, I couldn’t really answer it, I’m afraid.”

Sergio grabbed his phone and stormed out of the house. He didn’t know why everyone has decided to make him feel like an idiot.

 

***

 

José Mourinho was waiting in his office. Abramovich had promised he would call him once he got the news from his agent. José didn’t like it. First he was asked to get Abramovich someone who would be a connection between Torres and Interpol, but then Abramovich sent his own agent as well and even though José didn’t really like Ramos, it smelled bad to him. He didn’t come to England to be treated exactly the same as he was in Madrid. And he didn’t bring Ramos here just so that he was thrown into something José had no control over.

José got up and opened the door.

“Luiz!” he barked.

When his secretary looked at him with a hopeful expression, José groaned.

“I don’t want coffee!” he said. “Did anyone call?”

“No, sir,” Luiz said.

José growled. It was already night. He was the last person in the building, except for Luiz, whom he didn’t really consider a person.

Just when he was going back to the office, there was a ring. José turned around, only to see Luiz looking at him calmly.

“Will you pick it up?” he shouted.

“I can, but it’s your cell phone!” Luiz said.

José sighed and fished his phone out of his pocket. He saw Abramovich’s number and answered the phone.

“Mourinho.”

“Everything went as planned,” Abramovich’s contented voice said. “Your agent and Torres are in Liverpool. My agent just came back.”

“Good. Anything you need me to do?”

“Ramos has the instructions for now. Then we have to wait for the situation to develop.”

José hesitated.

“When can I tell Ramos that...”

Abramovich didn’t even let him finish the sentence.

“There’s enough time for that.”

“Excuse me, Mr. Abramovich, but why can’t I tell him?”

Abramovich sighed.

“Mr. Mourinho, from what I’ve seen from Agent Ramos, let me just say that he’s a very... open person. I have my reasons to believe that if he knew that he was in fact going to kill Torres later, he couldn’t keep it a secret.”

“You mean he would just tell him?” José frowned.

“Of course not, but Torres is not dumb either. He could sense something is off. I mean, for now it’s better if they both believe the same version of the story.”

José knew there was no sense in arguing with Abramovich. So he just agreed for the time being and hang up. Then he turned around to see Luiz pulling at his curls absent-mindedly. José needed to ventilate his frustration and there wasn’t anyone else on hand. He crossed his arms.

“Explain to me, Luiz...” he said. “How did it happen that you got this job?”

The Brazilian scratched his head.

“Well... Mr. Benítez asked if I could make coffee. I said yes.”

“And?”

“And he gave me the job!” Luiz shrugged.

José nodded.

“It was obviously high time they called me to London,” he said.

 

***

 

It didn’t take Sergio long to find a place that was still open, but he took his time. He felt like he needed the fresh air. Not that he would be the type of person who did a lot of thinking, he usually acted first and then sort of thought of the consequences he was about to face. But now he just sat on a bench and lit a cigarette. He didn’t really smoke, but from time to time it helped him when he was nervous.

He was here with a guy he didn’t know at all, except for knowing his crime record, which certainly wasn’t anything that could calm him down. He sighed. Carneiro was pissing him off because she was bossy and knew everything better, but now he sort of wished she were there. At least he could sleep without being afraid that Torres would murder him in his sleep. Which certainly has already crossed his mind. He knew he wasn’t really Mourinho’s favorite person in the world, but he would expect that he wouldn’t at least throw him to a convicted killer like a juicy bone.

In Madrid he felt honored that he got sent to England instead of Modrić who already had experience with the English units. Now he didn’t think it was anything to be proud of. It just showed that if they had to sacrifice someone, they preferred to keep Modrić alive over Sergio.

He threw the cigarette on the ground and shook his head. He was being too melodramatic. Hell, he was a special agent and it wasn’t his first day. He would deal with the situation the best way he could.

 

***

 

Sergio walked in and switched on the light. Fernando groaned and hid his face as much as he could.

“No need to torture me, Sergio!” he said. “You’re worse than the prison guards.”

Sergio again winced at the sound of his name.

“I didn’t mean to,” he said then, throwing the bag with food on the table.

“That’s alright, I was just joking.”

Sergio walked over to him and crouched on the floor. When he leaned over, Fernando turned his head and their faces touched for a second. Sergio flinched, almost falling back.

“Sorry,” Fernando said calmly.

Sergio unlocked the handcuffs. It took him three tries. Fernando kept watching him attentively.

“Are you nervous, Sergio?” he asked.

Sergio looked up and made a face.

“No. Just clumsy. Have been for all my life.”

“That’s why you’ve become a special agent, eh?” Fernando said.

Sergio actually laughed.

“Yeah, probably.”

Fernando scrambled to his feet and walked over to the armchairs. He plopped down on one and looked at Sergio.

“Look, Sergio,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t murder you in your sleep and try to run away to Mexico or anything. Despite everything you might have read in my record, I’m not that kind of person.”

“I don’t know what kind of person you are,” Sergio said harshly. “And I’m not afraid of you.”

“Well...” Fernando shrugged. “Then you can keep tying me to the radiator, I don’t mind. But if you could trust me just a little bit, it would make all a lot easier.”

“Trust you?” Sergio snorted. “How the hell can I trust you?”

Fernando sighed and got up.

“If I try to escape now, it will be a matter of hours until I have a bullet in the head, probably from that Agent Carneiro who seemed all too eager to relieve the society of my existence. I have nowhere to go, Sergio, nothing to come back to. If I have a chance, it’s this,” he looked right in Sergio’s eyes. “However absurd it sounds, Sergio, you’re now the closest person I have. I wouldn’t want to kill you.”

Sergio was silent for a few seconds. Then he grabbed a hamburger from the table, fled to the other room and closed the door behind him. Carneiro was right again. This guy’s face was dangerous, his voice and his eyes were dangerous, and he almost fell for it.

 


	3. Three

Sergio was staring into the ceiling. He wasn’t even trying to sleep. His mind was too awake. He thought of calling Iker, because he was already feeling like he was going out of his mind, but then also remembered what time it was and he was pretty sure that if not Iker, then Iker’s girlfriend would murder him over the phone if he called now.

He got up and opened the door quietly, then headed to the kitchen. He poured himself a glass of water and slowly drank it, looking out of the window at the dark, dirty backyard. Suddenly a though flew through his mind, that he felt almost like _he_ was the criminal there, hiding from the world. He almost laughed at it, only then realized it actually wasn’t funny. Putting the empty glass in the sink, Sergio switched off the light and went back to his bedroom.

Then he stopped in the middle of the room. Fernando was sleeping on the sofa, curled up like a child. He indeed looked like a child. Almost fragile, vulnerable, he looked almost innocent. Sergio couldn’t tear his eyes from that face. It certainly could fool people. If Sergio hadn’t read all the reports and didn’t hear the story of this man, no way he would believe that he was even capable of stealing a bubble gum, leave alone killing someone.

But there was something else in this man, something magnetic. When he spoke, it was hard not to believe him, when he looked at you, it was hard not to be mesmerized, and when you had him within reach, it was hard not to touch him. Sergio found himself moving his hand involuntarily, like he really wanted to reach for his face. Then he shook his head wildly and quickly closed the door of his bedroom behind him.

In that very moment, Fernando opened his eyes and smiled slyly.

 

***

 

It was the muffled sound of the television that woke Sergio up in the morning. He groaned and got up. A look at his watch told him that it was seven in the morning. Sergio was used to night shifts, but he usually got his sleep after them. Getting up early wasn’t his specialty.

He dragged his feet to the door, opened it and headed to the bathroom blindly.

“Good morning, Sergio!” Fernando‘s voice greeted him from the sofa.

Sergio just groaned in response and continued to the bathroom. Then he stopped and looked around his shoulder.

“Are you seriously watching Sesame Street?” he asked.

“Haven’t seen it for years,” Fernando said calmly.

Sergio shook his head and closed the door of the bathroom.

 

***

 

“So, Sergio, I suppose you have some awesome plan how to make Gerrard fall around my neck and say all he needed was me,” Fernando said as they sat in the living room with the breakfast Sergio brought mainly because he needed some fresh air again.

“Sure,” Sergio snapped. “So...”

“So you’re completely crazy,” Fernando chuckled. “Problem is, Gerrard isn’t going to fall around my neck. Ever. Probably not even Pepe is going to. They’re not idiots, they will not believe I could escape from Wakefield by myself. And who am I supposed to say that helped me, Sergio? Secret Agent Eva Carneiro? You?”

“You can always say you don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure. That will increase my credibility,” Fernando made a face. “And even more when I will have you behind my back all the time. Who am I supposed to say you are when they spot you?”

“They will not spot me.”

“You sure overestimate yourself, Sergio. People like Gerrard have a sixth sense when it comes to cops. That’s why you’ve never been able to get them.”

“So what is it that you’re trying to tell me here?” Sergio folded his arms.

“That we will do it my way,” Fernando said calmly. “Which means you’ll have to trust me a little bit more than you do now.”

Sergio took a deep breath.

“Listen, you are not the one setting up the rules here!”

“Oh, Sergio, don’t get territorial!” Fernando laughed.

“Besides, my boss would kill me,” Sergio murmured.

“And if we do it according to your plan and we fail, he won’t kill you?” Fernando leaned over. “He doesn’t have to know, does he?”

Sergio backed up instinctively as Fernando‘s lips were almost touching his ear.

“Just once. About Reina, we will go my way. If it doesn’t work right, then I will do what you say next time and not protest once.”

“If Reina doesn’t believe you, he will tell Gerrard and there will be no next time,” Sergio objected.

“Why?” Fernando frowned and stretched out on the sofa lazily. “If he doesn’t believe me, I’ll kill him before he can tell Gerrard and we’ll start with someone else.”

Sergio did his best not to gasp when he remembered Fernando‘s face that he saw at night and when he now heard him speak such words like they were discussing a school project.

“I can’t let you go there alone,” he said then.

“You won’t. You can always stay in front of the building, Pepe is not that paranoid to check all cars, or at least he wasn’t before. I will wear a wire if you want me to. But I have to go inside alone, that you understand.”

Sergio nodded slowly. Mourinho was probably going to kill him if he found out, but what Fernando was saying made sense.

“Fine,” he said finally.

Fernando gave him one of his charming smiles and looked at the table.

“Will you mind if I snatch the last donut?” he asked.

“No,” Sergio sighed.

For a hundredth time in the last twenty-four hours he regretted being assigned to this mission instead of Modrić.

 

***

 

José Mourinho stormed through the hall towards the lift. He was furious. Abramovich had left him waiting not in the office, but at the reception, because he was having a meeting with someone José wasn’t supposed to meet. Then he went on about the necessity to protect the secret agents’ identities, even though José was pretty sure the agent in question was the one assigned to their case together with Ramos, so he could as well ask Ramos if he wanted to know the agent’s identity.

Then again, Ramos couldn’t probably describe even his own mother enough for a portraitist to draw a sketch.

At least Abramovich assured him that Rodgers had made all the arrangements so that the plan wouldn’t fail just because some traffic officer wanted to stop Ramos’ car for speeding. Still, he was pretty mad.

He walked into his office and on the way switched off the radio that was blasting some annoying music.

“Luiz!” he barked.

“Sir?” his secretary asked, carefully observing whether there was something José could throw at him.

José took a deep breath.

“Make me some coffee.”

Luiz looked at him like José has just made his day.

“Sure, sir. Coming right away.”

“Fine,” José murmured and grabbed the pile of envelopes from the table. “I will take these before you accidentally shred them.”

Luiz grinned at him and danced towards the coffee machine. With a sigh, José closed the door behind him and sat in his chair. He was hoping at least Ramos would have positive news in the evening.

 

***

 

Pepe Reina walked up the stairs to his apartment. The corridor was dim and narrow. He put the key in the hole when he heard a rustle at the end of the corridor. He reached for the gun in his jacket and made two steps.

“Who is in there?” he asked.

“You wouldn’t shoot an old friend, would you?” a voice sounded from the darkness.

Pepe gasped.

“N-Nando?”

Fernando walked out of the shadows and smiled. Pepe’s eyes went wide.

“God, don’t just stand there, come in, quick!” he whispered.

“Always so frightened, Pepe!” Fernando laughed, but followed Pepe inside.

Once Pepe switched on the lights, he looked at Fernando and hugged him.

“Fuck, the whole England is looking for you!” he breathed. “How the hell did you do that thing?”

“Someone helped me.”

“Who?”

“That’s not important.”

Pepe shook his head in disbelief. Then he motioned to the sofa and went to the kitchen, rummaging in the fridge for a moment before finding two bottles of beer. He handed Fernando one and sat in the armchair opposite to him.

“You look good,” he noted. “For...”

“For five years in Wakefield, I know.”

There was an awkward moment of silence. Then Pepe took a breath.

“Listen, Nando... I can’t let you hide in here...”

“Oh, no, no!” Fernando laughed. “I don’t need a hideout, I have one, don’t worry.”

Pepe frowned.

“Then why...”

“I need money, Pepe,” Fernando said, turning the bottle in his hand. “And no way someone’s going to give them to me just like that. After all, all our former friends are dead, in jail or enjoying the beaches in Mexico. I was thinking, if someone needs my services, then at least the money would be deserved.”

Pepe kept looking at him. Fernando leaned closer to him.

“I know what you do now, Pepe. Sure you need someone who’s capable of anything, eh?”

Pepe scratched his head. Of course Gerrard kept complaining about pretty much everyone, except Suárez, who on the other hand usually took Coates and disappeared somewhere in South America, so naturally Gerrard had to take it out on someone else even if he was angry with him. But he was a too little fish to just bring someone in.

“I... I would have to talk about it with Ag... someone.”

Fernando leaned back with a smirk.

“You don’t believe me.”

“No, it’s not that!” Pepe protested. “But you have to understand, I’m not...”

“You don’t even trust me enough to speak out loud someone’s name in front of me. What would it matter if I knew a name? You think I’ll run to the cops with it? I’m running _from_ the cops, remember, Pepe?”

Pepe nodded and got up. Fernando kept looking at him, his calmness contrasting with Pepe’s nervous circling around the room.

“I’ll talk about it with Agger, alright?” he barked then.

“Sure,” Fernando smiled. “Whoever it is, talk to him.”

Pepe nodded and watched Fernando as he got up.

“How do I contact you, then?” he asked.

“No need to contact me. I’ll come again. Day after tomorrow, let’s say?”

“Isn’t it risky?” Pepe asked. “To just walk around Liverpool like that?”

Fernando tapped him on the shoulder.

“Don’t worry. I’m careful.”

Pepe was worried enough, but didn’t let it show until Fernando walked out the door. Then he poured himself a big glass of whiskey and downed it in two gulps. For some reason he had the feeling that he was in deep trouble now.

 

***

 

Fernando got into Sergio’s car and grinned.

“So?” he asked, removing the wire from underneath his jacket. “Wasn’t it better than whatever plan you and your awesome boss had?”

Sergio nodded reluctantly.

“Yeah.”

Fernando leaned back and looked out of the window.

“Well, Pepe was easy. He’s quite trusting, even though he tries to hide it. Agger will be worse.”

“You know him?” Sergio asked.

“If I know Agger? Never met him personally, but there were quite some stories circulating in Wakefield about him. Can’t say I’m looking forward to that meeting.”

“Why?”

“They say he never thinks twice before pulling out the gun if he doesn’t like you.”

Sergio looked at him. Fernando gave him a smirk.

“Let’s hope he likes me, shall we?”

 

***

 

Sergio watched the news out of a habit. They did mention Fernando, but all they said were old news. The investigation of the shooting was leading nowhere, as it obviously was supposed to, according to Abramovich’s plan.

As he was going to switch off the TV, Fernando stopped him.

“Leave it on!” he said.

Sergio gave him a surprised look, but Fernando seemed to be focusing on the TV. Only when the report was over, he leaned back and smiled.

“Why do some kids who tried to rob an army shop interest you?” Sergio asked.

“Why do some kids who tried to rob an army shop in Liverpool, right when you suspect Gerrard’s group to be up to something big, interest me? Because it tells me that they desperately need someone who can do this better, perhaps.”

Sergio frowned.

“How can you be so sure that it has something to do with Gerrard’s group?”

“Intuition.”

Sergio snorted and got up.

“I’m going to get dinner.”

Fernando looked at him with the impish smile that could make Sergio mad unfailingly.

“Could it be Chinese?”

“It will be whatever I come across,” he snapped and looked towards the radiator pointedly.

“Oh, and I thought we were already over this!” Fernando whined.

“Well, you thought wrong.”

“You really can’t trust me even a little bit, Sergio?”

Sergio thought for a while.

“I can,” he said then and threw the handcuffs at him. “Just one hand and you can do it yourself.”

 

***

 

Daniel Agger banged his fist into a table.

“You two I will send for my death, I can be sure I’ll live for long then!” he shouted.

The two young boys cowered when he started to load his gun while he was talking.

“Now you’ll tell me that half of the city saw you and probably two police cars followed you.”

“N-no, we got away before the police arrived!” one of them spoke.

“Did you?” Agger groaned.

“We... how could we know that the old guy had a gun there?”

“How? True, Flanagan, a gun in an army shop is a very unusual thing.”

“Well, I mean that he would actually point it at us...”

“I would point it at you two fuckers as well! Can’t you fucking deal with an old fucker? There were two of you! Won’t you have your say now, Coutinho? When you learn English, perhaps.”

He got up and to the boys’ relief put his gun back into the holster.

“I’m going to talk to Steven now. He will be delighted to hear about our young hopes, I think.”

Flanagan and Coutinho looked at each other and gulped.

“Go help Carroll, maybe you will accidentally explode all three and it will solve all my problems!” Agger barked and banged the door behind him.

He stopped when he saw Pepe Reina smoking in front of the building.

“Can I talk to you?” Reina asked.

“Don’t even tell me that you also fucked something up today!” Agger groaned.

“No, I just need to discuss something with you.”

“Good,” Agger said and unlocked his car. “Get in. When you start getting on my nerves too much, I’ll kick you out.”

 

***

 

Sergio stopped in the middle of a park. It was probably the best place to make a phone call he didn’t want anyone to overhear. The park was already empty, except for a group of drunkards who certainly couldn’t give a damn about a secret mission led by Interpol.

He dialed the number and waited.

“José Mourinho’s office!” sounded from the phone.

“Can I talk to Mourinho?” Sergio asked.

“No.”

“No? What do you mean, no?”

“Not before you tell me who you are and what you want, sir.”

“Not like you told me who you were,” Sergio snapped. “Sure you’re not called ‘José Mourinho’s office’.”

There was a short chuckle.

“Thank God not. I’m David Luiz, sir.”

“Fine, I’m Sergio Ramos and Mourinho is expecting my call.”

“Of course, I’ll put you through.”

There was a clack and in the next moment, José’s angry voice sounded from the speaker.

“What the hell took you so long, Ramos?”

“Last five minutes, trying to convince your assistant to put me through. And before, I was busy.”

“How is it going?” José asked.

“Good. He contacted Reina today and Reina promised to talk to Agger. So now we’ll have to wait.”

“Where are you now?”

Sergio was caught off guard momentarily.

“Eh... I’m outside.”

“And where the hell is Torres?”

“In the apartment.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Ramos?”

“Calm down, boss!” Sergio said. “He won’t make a step.”

Mourinho didn’t sound like he calmed down, but at least there were no more expletives.

“Anything more?” he asked then.

“Um... yes. Do you think the attempted robbery in Liverpool today could have anything in common with Gerrard’s group?”

“The attempted robbery?”

“It was on the news.”

“Yeah, I know. Well, the old guy to whom the shop belongs described two young guys who indeed seem to belong with Gerrard’s group. What interests me is how you deduced this from a TV report.”

Sergio gulped.

“Intuition?” he said.

“Did you wake up a genius this morning, Ramos?” José snorted. “Well, I’ll let you know if there’s anything you should know about this thing.”

“Sure. Thanks. Good night.”

There was a familiar growl at the other end and then Mourinho hung up. Sergio stuck his phone in his pocket and started walking towards the street.

“Chinese,” he muttered.

 


	4. Four

Pepe Reina walked in his apartment and switched on the light. A moment later he almost died from a heart attack. Fernando was sitting in his armchair, grinning like the Cheshire cat.

“What the hell, Nando?” Pepe yelled.

“I didn’t want to risk lounging around on the corridor, so I invited myself in,” Fernando said calmly. “Did you talk to Agger?”

“Yeah,” Pepe groaned. “Yeah, I did.”

“And?”

Pepe sat on the sofa and looked at him.

“Agger wants to meet you.”

“Fine.”

“Tomorrow at seven, Priory Road. Just him and you.”

“I’ll be there.”

Pepe bit his lip.

“Listen, Nando... just... you don’t know Agger, okay? Don’t piss him off, alright?”

“You mean I shouldn’t be my usual self?” Fernando chuckled.

“Yeah, just... just do what he says. He’s kinda pissed off already, so...”

“Because of the kids that can’t even rob an army shop properly?” Fernando laughed.

Pepe gasped.

“How the fuck do you know?”

“It was on the news.”

“Yeah, well, that’s it. Gerrard doesn’t want publicity, and they do such thing. Agger of course had to tell Gerrard, so you get he isn’t really in the mood.”

“I get it.”

Pepe nodded. Fernando smirked.

“Why do I still get the feeling that you’re not very happy to see me?” he asked.

“I am!” Pepe objected. “It’s just that... I don’t know why you want to do this. You would never work under anyone before.”

“Also before, I wouldn’t eat McDonald’s for dinner or walk around with this terrible hair, but right now I have no choice.”

Pepe laughed.

“I’ll get you some bleach if it makes you feel better.”

“Maybe later,” Fernando grinned. “Don’t want to risk a bleaching accident before my date with Agger, eh?”

 

***

 

Fernando got in the car and looked at Sergio.

“So?” he asked.

“So it’s going well so far, I suppose,” Sergio said and started the car.

“Yeah.”

Fernando looked out of the window and bit his lip. Him not making any comments on Sergio’s way of driving or just not making any attempt in general to piss Sergio off was so unusual that Sergio glanced at him. Fernando looked like he was thinking hard about something.

“What is it?” Sergio asked.

“It’s too easy,” Fernando said.

“You said with Pepe it would be easy,” Sergio objected.

“Yeah, with Pepe, but... Pepe is a small fish. He tells someone like Agger ‘Hey, I know this guy...’ and Agger is all too eager to meet me the next day... no, it’s too easy.”

“What are we going to do, then?”

“I’m going to think about it now.”

In a way Sergio was glad that he wasn’t required to think about it himself, but then he thought that whatever Fernando would think of, he wouldn’t like, and Mourinho would like it even less.

 

***

 

Luis Suárez groaned when his phone rang somewhere under the piles of his clothes. He dug in his jacket and trousers, then cursed quietly.

“Try shoes,” a sleepy voice suggested from the bed.

“Why would I put my phone in my shoes?” Luis snapped.

Sebastián Coates peeked out from underneath the blanket.

“I don’t know, but if you don’t find it quickly, the stupid ringtone will kill me.”

Finally Luis localized the phone under his shirt and answered the call.

“Do you realize what time it is here?” he barked.

“I don’t give a damn,” Steven Gerrard’s voice snapped back. “If you two are done fucking there, you could finally come back, not like we’re not short on people. Nobody cares if you fuck here or there.”

“Oh, shut up!” Luis laughed. “The deal is almost done.”

“Good. Just come back already. Right now, Carroll is in charge. You know, it makes me kind of nervous.”

“If he hasn’t yet blown up the whole Liverpool, he’s doing better than usual.”

“Yeah, but we better not rely on that for too long,” Gerrard said. “So control your libido and concentrate on work.”

Luis hang up and laughed.

“What?” Seba asked.

“He still thinks us two fuck.”

“Don’t we?” Seba laughed.

“Not on regular bases.”

“Didn’t know you needed a schedule for that.”

“I need a schedule for everything,” Luis said.

“Do I fit in that schedule?”

“Momentarily... no!” Luis said and picked up his jacket. “Maybe later. Now I’m going to risk waking up Tévez because Gerrard obviously can’t live without us.”

“Well, he’s left with Coutinho who probably can’t spell his name right, so...”

“Yeah. No wonder they even consider someone Reina suggested.”

“Reina suggested someone?” Seba asked with amusement.

“Yeah. Some friend of his, apparently he’s just escaped from jail,” Luis said. “Agger’s meeting him tomorrow.”

“Do we really need that? I mean, someone who the police is after.”

“Of course we don’t,” Luis said. “If Gerrard said yes to this, then I doubt his sanity.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I hope Agger knows what he’s doing, but anyways, if he brings him in, that guy’s gonna have me behind his back all the time.”

“Poor fellow,” Seba commented before ducking as Luis threw a shoe at him.

“Pack our stuff, I hope we’re leaving in the afternoon. If Tévez comes up with another excuse why he doesn’t have the rest of the stuff, I’m gonna kill him, legit.”

 

***

 

As soon as they arrived to the apartment, Fernando plopped down on the sofa and looked at Sergio.

“Did you think of anything?” Sergio asked.

“Yeah,” Fernando nodded. “You’re not going to like it, Sergio.”

Sergio crossed his arms.

“Really?”

“The meeting with Agger tomorrow... I have to go there alone.”

Sergio laughed.

“No way.”

“Yes, Sergio, I have to go there alone,” Fernando said calmly. “Not with you a few meters behind us. No wire. No nothing, just me and Agger.”

“You’re mad,” Sergio shook his head.

“If I don’t do it this way, I’m not doing it at all. Because this is what Agger wants. He asks for us to meet because he wants to know if I’m a snitch or not. If I have cops attached to my leg like I do. He sees you and we’re both dead, and I’m just not risking that, Sergio.”

Sergio took a deep breath.

“Now listen!” he snapped. “Such was the deal. You want something from us, we want something from you, and you knew what that would be. So you knew you would be risking your life and you will fucking do that!”

Fernando looked at him with a surprised, almost amused smirk.

“But I wasn’t talking about my life, Sergio.”

“You were... what?” Sergio gasped.

“I didn’t say I wouldn’t risk my life, I meant that I wouldn’t risk yours.”

For a moment, Sergio was just gaping at Fernando, unable to speak at all. Then he cleared his throat.

“I can take care of myself.”

“Against Agger and his men?”

“You said there would be just you and him.”

“And you believe that?” Fernando chuckled. “A guy like Agger wouldn’t go to a meeting with someone he doesn’t know just like that, alone. I expect at least one other guy. And because I suppose you’d never let me carry a gun...”

“That’s right,” Sergio growled.

“Haven’t you actually thought about it? You and your boss... what was his name again... Mourinho?”

“About what?”

“That if I got close to Gerrard’s group, I’d get hold of a gun sooner or later. You can’t do anything about it. I would be hell suspicious if I didn’t have one. So, actually, you have no other choice than to trust me I wouldn’t turn it against you... which I wouldn’t. And if you believe me that, you can as well let me go to that meeting alone.”

Sergio just marveled at how good Fernando was at manipulating people. What he was saying was obviously making sense, or he made it sound like that. But Sergio knew that he couldn’t simply go against his boss and listen to some criminal. But he had no idea what to do.

“I have to talk to Mourinho about it,” he said finally.

“I can already tell you what his opinion will be.”

“Well, and what do you want me to do?” Sergio yelled. “To go against my boss, to risk that I’ll spend the rest of my life probably making coffee like that assistant of Mourinho’s whom he’s constantly complaining about? Do you want me to let you wander around Liverpool unattended?”

“I simply want you to trust me, Sergio. Where do you think I would go? What would I do?”

“I don’t know!” Sergio yelled. “I don’t fucking know you!”

“That’s right, you don’t know me!” Fernando raised his voice as well. “All you know is what you read in my fucking file. Do you think you can get to know someone like that?”

“It tells me enough!”

“Fine,” Fernando spread his arms. “Fine. We will do it your way. After all, _I_ have nothing to lose.”

Sergio jumped up when Fernando banged the bedroom door behind him. He didn’t even manage to object that the bedroom was actually _his_ place.

 

***

 

José Mourinho finished reading his post and enjoying the coffee he had reluctantly accepted. When he walked out of his office, the first thing he saw was David Luiz making a sandwich while dancing to some crazy song.

“Luiz!” José barked.

No reaction.

“LUIZ!” José yelled and switched off the radio, to be awarded with an accusing look of the curly haired assistant. “Do I have to remind you that this is my office, not a samba club?”

“No,” Luiz said and bit in his sandwich. “By the way, Mr. Abramovich has just called.”

“Has just called?” José repeated in disbelief. “Why didn’t you put him through?”

“You said nobody was to disturb you, sir,” Luiz shrugged. “I told him you were busy and that he should call later.”

José felt his blood pressure rising dangerously.

“Congratulations,” he said then through gritted teeth. “You’re historically the first person ever to hang up on Roman Abramovich.”

 

***

 

Sergio was staring at his cell phone. There were certainly some people he should call. First of all, Mourinho. He should report to him and probably discuss what he was going to do. Then there was also Florentino, whom he promised to call to assure him that he had no problem with getting possibly killed for the sake of Florentino’s team, mainly Modrić. And then there was Iker. Whose advice would probably come in handy, but on the other hand Sergio was afraid that Iker would immediately diagnose him with some psychosis and tell Florentino to call him back. No matter what problem you had, Iker could always find some psychosis that the symptoms would fit.

Phone calls could wait.

Sergio got up and walked to the bedroom door. Then he took a deep breath and opened it.

Fernando was lying in Sergio’s bed - alright, technically it was just the bed that was here, but _he_ slept in it – staring at the ceiling. He didn’t move even when Sergio walked in.

“Why would you care?” Sergio asked.

Fernando looked at him lazily.

“What?”

“Why would you care about whether Agger kills me or not?”

“Why wouldn’t you care, if not for my life, then at least for yours?” Fernando shrugged. “Unless you’re one of those fools who think that as long as they have a gun, they’re immortal. But I don’t think you are.”

“I have to tell Mourinho something,” Sergio said quietly. “And telling him that I let you unguarded would be like handing in my notice.”

“Then don’t tell him!” Fernando shrugged.

“What do you mean?”

“We can have one version for Mourinho and one that doesn’t get us both killed.”

Sergio bit his lip.

“I can’t let you go there alone.”

“You have to, Sergio!” Fernando said, sat up and looked in Sergio’s eyes. “Agger once shot a guy for selling him a fake Harley spare part. What do you think he would do with a guy selling him his fake self and an Interpol agent on top?”

“I think he wouldn’t be happy,” Sergio nodded.

“No.”

“You have a plan?”

“Supposing that we will leave Mourinho out and that you won’t follow me?” Fernando grinned.

“Theoretically speaking.”

“Well, we can’t really plan anything because we don’t know what Agger will do, but I know one thing for sure.”

“That is?”

“He’ll want to know how I got out of prison.”

“And what will you tell him?”

“I’ll tell him that you helped me.”

Sergio’s eyes went wide.

“What?”

“Of course I won’t tell him who you are. But it will help us.”

“How?”

“So that then you can approach me and it won’t look suspicious.”

Sergio nodded.

“That’s clever.”

“Thanks. Not just for the compliment.”

“For what else?” Sergio asked.

“For finally trusting me a little bit.”

“Don’t disappoint me, then.”

“I won’t,” Fernando smiled. “Promise.”

When Sergio closed the door behind him, Fernando shook his head.

“You’re asking for trouble with this naivety.”

 

***

 

Steven Gerrard was just watching the evening news when his phone rang. He answered the call and a very distressed Sebastián Coates’ voice sounded from the phone.

“Steven, I don’t know what to do!”

“You never do,” Steven growled. “What’s up?”

“Luis went to close up the deal with Tévez in the morning, he’s not back yet and he doesn’t answer my calls.”

Steven cursed loudly. Daniel Agger looked at him from the other armchair and raised his brows in a silent question. Steven mouthed “Suárez” and scratched his head.

“You got the goods?” he asked then.

“Most of it,” Sebastián said. “Luis went to get the rest because Tévez said he was waiting for some shipment...”

“Take what you have and get out of there.”

“What?” Sebastián yelled.

“You heard me, it smells bad, get the fuck out of there!” Steven said.

“No!”

Daniel suppressed a giggle upon seeing Steven’s shocked expression.

“No? What the hell do you mean, no?” Steven asked.

“I can’t just leave!”

“And what do you think you can do?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not leaving him here!” Sebastián said. “If he went to see Tévez, I’m going to his den for the start. Will call you.”

“I honestly doubt that you will,” Steven growled and threw the phone on the table. “Fuck this.”

“What happened?” Daniel asked.

Steven sighed deeply.

“As it looks now, we’ll probably be stuck with Carroll for the rest of our lives.”

 

***

 

Sergio sat on a bench and dialed the number of Mourinho’s office. He was greeted by the familiar cheerful voice.

“José Mourinho’s office!”

“Sergio Ramos, Mourinho’s expecting...”

“Yeah, I know.”

Silence.

“Well, can you put me through, then?” Sergio asked tentatively.

“No.”

“Why is that now?”

“Mr. Mourinho is on the phone with Mr. Abramovich now. So you’ll have to wait.”

“Alright,” Sergio sighed.

“I would offer you coffee, but since you’re not here, I can only offer you virtual coffee.”

“Thanks, I think not even real coffee would save me.”

“Mine would,” Mourinho’s assistant assured him. “OK, the line is free now, I’ll put you through.”

“Thanks.”

There was a clack and then Mourinho’s annoyed voice sounded from the phone.

“I hope you have positive news, Ramos!”

“What news would you like?” Sergio snapped.

“Well, I’ve just talked to Abramovich. He’s starting to be a bit impatient.”

“Of course,” Sergio barked. “He thinks Modrić would do better.”

“I think Abramovich doesn’t give a damn if it’s Modrić or you, and honestly, I don’t give a damn either as long as you don’t fuck up. So what do you have?”

“Meeting with Agger. Tomorrow.”

“Awesome. Is that all?”

“That’s all. We can’t get anywhere without Agger.”

“Make sure you get past him, then. And make sure that Torres stays where he’s supposed to stay.”

Sergio gulped and prayed that Mourinho didn’t hear it.

“Don’t worry, sir. I won’t take my eyes off him.”

 


	5. Five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains what could be rated dub-con/non-con.

Fernando was standing on Priory Road, hands in his pocket, trying to look as casual and relaxed as possible. It wasn‘t a show for the passer-byes, as there were practically none. He simply didn’t want to be seen by Agger and his men fretting and running around like a frightened rabbit.

A car stopped at the sidewalk and two men stepped out of it. They leaned over the car and just stared at Fernando. His eyes flickered from one to another before finally lingering on the one on the left.

“Agger?” he asked.

The man chuckled.

“Was that a guess?” he asked.

“More like a deduction,” Fernando said.

If he didn’t believe some of the stories he had heard about Agger before, now he did. He really looked... intimidating, to put it mildly. Not that the other guy with shaved head and not much less tattoos didn’t look intimidating as well, but Agger had his dangerousness written all over his face and mainly in his eyes. He was by no means just a usual thug shooting everything that moves.

“Well, let’s go!” the other guy said, looking around and then carefully checking Fernando’s clothes for any weapons. “Not like we look too inconspicuous.”

He opened the back door. Agger motioned to Fernando to get in first. There was a third man sitting in the driver’s seat. When Agger sat next to Fernando and his guard in the front seat, Fernando felt uncomfortably trapped.

“Let’s go, Kelly!” Agger said.

The driver started the car and drove down Priory Road. He didn’t ask where they were going. Fernando certainly wasn’t going to ask himself. Wherever they were going, nobody would know he went there, so he was probably royally fucked either way if something went wrong.

“A bit tense, aren’t you?” Agger chuckled. “Relax, man!”

His hand fell on Fernando's thigh heavily. He gulped. Yes, he was royally fucked.

 

***

 

Carlos Tévez walked in his house and was getting ready to head right to the fridge when a familiar click of the gun sounded behind his ear. He cursed in his mind, feeling the wave of rage hitting him. He wasn’t anyone to be jumped by some fuckers, leave alone in his own house.

“Your pizza can wait, Apache!” someone said behind him.

Carlos chuckled.

“Don’t pretend you can hold a gun, Coates. Suárez would never let you have one.”

“Then better don’t move, I could accidentally shoot you,” Seba growled. “And speaking of Suárez, any idea where he is?”

“I’m not his mother, man!”

“Well, but he did go to see you, didn’t he? So I think it’s logical that I’m looking for him here.”

Carlos didn’t say anything. That was until a loud shot almost made him go deaf in one ear and something hot flew dangerously close to his scalp.

“Are you fucking mad?” he yelled, instinctively throwing himself to the ground.

“Sorry,” Seba said. “When my questions are not answered, I get nervous. With that goes the itchy finger. And right now it’s becoming itchy again.”

“I don’t fucking know where Suárez is!” Carlos said.

Another bullet hit the sofa right behind him.

“Fine, fine!” he yelled. “But I have nothing to do with it! El fucking Tigre and his guys appeared here and...”

“Why would Falcao even be here?” Seba asked.

“How the hell am I supposed to know? I don’t fuck with El Tigre, I love my life enough not to ask him questions, thank you very much! He’s probably pissed you make deals with us without him knowing.”

“As if he needed to care,” Seba snorted. “He could have already retired and spend the days smoking cigars by his giant swimming pool in Monaco. Why can’t he fucking leave us alone?”

“Because it’s his territory,” Carlos shrugged. “He’s not ready to retire.”

“Where did they go?”

“Wh- are you fucking mad?”

“You’ve already asked me that. Yes, I am. So where?”

Carlos sighed deeply. If there was something worse than pissed bosses, they were definitely pissed minions.

 

***

 

The place the car stopped at looked like an old warehouse. Fernando sort of expected something like that. He knew where the deals were usually done so he wouldn’t expect a posh restaurant.

“Leave us alone, guys,” Agger said.

His guard gave Fernando a mistrustful look.

“I don’t think our friend here wants to kill me, Škrtel!” Agger chuckled. “That’s not why he’s here, right?”

Fernando pulled out his best grin. Škrtel shrugged and got in the car. Agger motioned towards the entrance of the warehouse and Fernando followed him.

When the massive door opened, he gasped. It probably indeed used to be a warehouse, but now it had a whole different purpose. It was Agger’s _home_.

“Shall I play a good host or shall we get right into the business?” Agger asked.

“I’m fine, we can get into it.”

“Good,” Agger said and plopped down on an old leather sofa.

After a while of hesitating, Fernando took place in one of the armchairs.

“So Reina says you’re really good,” Agger said, his eyes boring into Fernando's like he wanted to scan his soul. “He’s probably right, you managed to get out of Wakefield. How did you do that?”

“I was just lucky,” Fernando said. “I had someone who helped me.”

“Who?”

“Sergio,” Fernando said calmly. “You probably don’t know him, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“A friend from the old times?”

“I have no friends from the old times, except Reina.”

Agger raised his brows.

“Then?”

“Sergio is... you know, one of these starstruck fools. You know those crazy women who fall in love with prisoners, defend them from all the world, write them letters and finally marry them. Well, Sergio’s like that. He would do anything to help me.”

Agger said nothing for a while.

“Well, I’ve heard these women usually find themselves robbed of all money or killed,” he said then.

Fernando smirked.

“That’s the risk,” he said. “Though unfortunately Sergio has no money I could rob him of. And I find his company amusing now, so I think I’ll let him live for some time. At least I have someone who feeds me.”

“Reina said your past was quite impressive,” Agger noted and Fernando felt the relief when they dropped the topic of Sergio. “But I personally don’t think it’s that impressive when you landed in prison. Means you fucked something up. I don’t like people who fuck up.”

“I learned my lesson.”

Agger smirked and lit a cigarette.

“What else did you learn? In Wakefield, for example. I’ve heard pretty guys like you had a chance to get quite some education there.”

Fernando gave him a condescending smile.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he said. “But not much. They deemed me too dangerous to socialize with others.”

“Really?” Agger said with feigned surprise. “I don’t think someone like you could go through such place without being noticed.”

“Are we going to discuss my sexual life here, or talk about business?” Fernando snapped, a bit more harshly than he intended to.

There was a strange glint in Agger’s eyes and Fernando immediately remembered Reina’s words. Well, he wanted to keep his mouth shut, the words just flew out of it before he could stop them. Agger got up and walked over to Fernando. He leaned so close that Fernando could smell the cigarette smoke and faint smell of soap.

“We are going to discuss whatever the fuck I want to discuss,” he said in a low voice. “For however long I please.”

If he was there only because he wanted to, Fernando would get up and leave. Or he would punch Agger right in the face. But well, he had different reasons for being there. So he just nodded. Agger looked like it calmed him down a little bit, but instead of moving back to the sofa, he sat on the armrest and lit another cigarette.

“Fine, we’ll get to that topic later,” he said calmly while Fernando quickly said a prayer in his mind. “Business first. I get it you know how to get money and other things.”

“As long as I have a gun and at least two reliable people,” Fernando nodded. “Then I can get you whatever you want.”

“Good,” Agger said and got up.

He kept digging in one drawer for some time, finally pulling out some papers. He handed them to Fernando and sat back on the armrest.

“What do you think?” he asked when Fernando went through them.

“Would you give me some guys?” Fernando asked.

“Yeah."

“A car?”

“You’ll have it.”

“Guns?”

Agger looked at him with slight surprise.

“You haven’t gotten yourself any yet?”

“Well, I had too little time for that. And besides, I wouldn’t want to scare my Sergio.”

Fernando even managed a little grin. Agger sighed.

“Fine, I’ll get you some.”

“So when?” Fernando asked.

“We’ll meet again after the week-end. I’ll arrange everything by then and we’ll go through the plan once more.”

Fernando nodded. He had to admit to himself that he liked Agger in his business mode. When it came to his other mode, he liked him fairly less.

“And now...” Agger dabbed the cigarette into an empty can of beer that was on the table. “Where did we end in our original topic?”

 

***

 

The bed smelled a lot like Agger.

It wasn’t the first time Fernando bottomed, but definitely it wasn’t his preference either. His appearance might have confused people, but he wasn’t usually the one to bottom. He simply didn’t like it. But there was no way Agger would let him on top and Fernando certainly wasn’t going to ask for it.

He didn’t like it, didn’t want it. It was so foreign to him that he almost felt like he was being raped, but there was nothing going on to what he didn’t agree. It was him who took his own clothes off in the first place. Also, it wasn’t like he was tied to that bed. He could get up and leave any time. But he felt like he couldn’t, and in some twisted way, didn’t even want to.

There was nothing gentle about the way Agger was fucking him. Fernando doubted it could be even called ‘fucking’. It was more like he was _using_ him. He didn’t care about Fernando at all, didn’t care about his pleasure or comfort. Didn’t care much about the preparation either and Fernando had to ball his fists in the sheets and bite in the pillow because he didn’t want to give Agger the satisfaction of making him scream. Agger barely touched him, if he didn’t count the painful grip on his hips. But despite all that, Fernando's cock, trapped between the sheets and his body, was painfully hard.

Agger suddenly reached for Fernando's wrists, brought them together and held them pressed to Fernando's lower back. With his other hand he grabbed Fernando's neck and pressed his face into the pillow.

“Now listen,” he said, his voice a bit breathy. “I’m not anyone you can fuck with.”

Fernando trashed against his hold, only to make Agger grip his neck tighter.

“And more importantly, who I work for is nobody you can fuck with, because nobody fucks with Steven Gerrard. Remember that forever.”

A wave of panic hit Fernando. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t breathe...

“You do something behind our back...” Agger said and like he suddenly remembered his cock was still in Fernando's ass, he pulled out and then slammed back into him, making Fernando feel like he was going to black out any second. “And I snap your neck, get it?”

Fernando tried his best to nod or to make any sound to let Agger know he understood him before he would suffocate him. Agger’s lips touched the shell of his ear.

“But before I snap your neck...” he whispered and licked in Fernando's ear.

Fernando whimpered and tried to get out of Agger’s grip again.

“I will make you suffer so much that this will seem like a child’s play compared to it,” Agger finished.

Then he finally let go of Fernando's neck. Fernando turned his head and took a deep, shaky breath that almost sounded like a sob. Agger, not paying attention to him anymore, slammed into him a few more times and then came inside him. Fernando didn’t even have enough strength to protest against it.

Agger got up and reached for his shirt casually, offering Fernando a view on the artwork on his back in the process. When he turned back, his eyes landed at Fernando's still hard cock and his mouth curled in an amused grin.

“Go on, finish up!” he said and folded his arms.

Fernando already knew him enough to know that it wasn’t a generous offer but rather an order. He wasn’t a show-off usually, but compared to all he already went through in that bed, it was nothing. And it was definitely better than walking out of there without getting the release.

Closing his eyes, Fernando reached for his erection. He could still feel Agger’s eyes on him. He tried to think of something else, of _someone_ else. To his surprise, the first person that came to his mind was Sergio. Well, to Fernando it actually didn’t matter. It could have been someone worse. Thinking of the few times he managed to get a glimpse of Sergio without clothes on he brought himself over the edge with a cry he couldn’t hold back. When he looked at Agger, there was a strange look on his face, he looked a bit lost in thoughts. Then he took his eyes off Fernando and tossed his clothes in his direction.

“Get dressed. Kelly will take you back.”

Fernando felt like a whore who’s just done his job, but it didn’t matter. If it meant he would get what he needed for that, he would get over it.

 

***

 

Škrtel and Kelly exchanged knowing looks when Fernando got in the car, because his flushed cheeks and messy hair spoke for themselves. He was grateful that they didn’t comment on it.

When he got out on Priory Road, Škrtel gave him another mistrustful look.

“Saturday at seven. Here. Don’t be late. Agger hates waiting.”

_Agger probably hates a lot of things,_ Fernando thought. _Probably the whole world._

“Sure.”

The car drove off. Fernando waited for a minute or two and then headed to the house he and Sergio were staying in.

 

***

 

Agger was staring into the ceiling, a cigarette in his hand. He felt strangely empty, like every time he did this. Like it still surprised him that it didn’t give him what he needed. But it couldn’t surprise him anymore.

His phone rang and he answered it immediately.

“Yeah?”

“Did you meet him?” Steven Gerrard’s voice asked.

“Yeah. Could do. Will meet him again on Saturday.”

“Did you give him your lesson?” Steven asked.

Agger chuckled.

“As I always do. He took it better than the others, I’d say.”

“Good,” Steven said calmly. “Listen, we might have a problem.”

“What problem?” Agger asked, putting the cigarette out.

“Coates just called.”

“So he’s not dead yet?” Agger laughed.

“No, though he might be soon. Seems like Falcao found out about the deal and he’s not very happy to be left out of it.”

“Sure. He can always sniff big money,” Agger said.

“Well, according to what Coates says, he decided to talk with Suárez about it. I told Coates to get the fuck out of there, but...”

“But he would rather follow Suárez to the grave,” Agger sighed. “Do we have to arrange with Falcao, then?”

“It will be better. We don’t want trouble, better feed the tiger than to be eaten, right?”

“Sure. But it will be more expensive.”

“I’m obviously not overjoyed about that. But it’s not like we have another choice if we want to get our things done.”

“Probably.”

“I’m kind of worried to entrust Coates with negotiation with Falcao, but...”

“But when you’ve already entrusted Carroll with explosives, nothing worse can happen,” Agger said.

 

***

 

Sergio looked at Fernando when he walked in.

“You were afraid I wouldn’t come back?” Fernando smirked.

“No. As you once said, agent Carneiro wouldn’t need much time to hunt you down,” Sergio smirked. “So how was Agger?”

“Still not as scary as agent Carneiro, but close.”

“Then?”

“I’ll meet him again on Saturday. Until then you and your boss have to figure out how I can rob a bank without getting caught.”

Sergio choked on the coke he was drinking.

“What?”

“It won’t be anything big,” Fernando said like it could reassure Sergio. “I suppose it’s more of a test than a real thing. Agger showed me the plans, it should be easy. Such bank robs itself. Just in case, though, you probably wouldn’t want the Merseyside police arresting me and sending me back to Wakefield.”

Sergio sighed. Actually, this wasn’t anything Mourinho didn’t ask for, but he didn’t really feel like telling him he would have to let Fernando rob a bank.

After Fernando explained everything to him, Sergio looked at him.

“Was that all?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Fernando asked.

“I mean if that was all that happened today.”

Fernando shrugged, but something flashed in his eyes.

“Sure, we talked about this, and the two guys, Kelly and Škrtel, then took me back. Why?”

“I don’t know, you look...” Sergio tried to think of the right word. “Tired.”

Actually, _tamed_ would be probably a better word, but _tired_ was safer.

“Yeah. I could use some dinner,” Fernando said and attempted his usual cheeky grin.

“I’ll get it,” Sergio said. “I need to talk to Mourinho anyways.”

Fernando just nodded.

“I’ll have a shower in the meanwhile. Unless you want to handcuff me to the radiator again, of course.”

Sergio shot an annoyed look at him and slammed the door behind him.

 

***

 

Sergio dialed the number and waited.

“José Mourinho’s office!” the familiar cheerful voice greeted him.

“Hi, David, it’s Sergio Ramos.”

“Hi, Sergio!” David Luiz said. “You probably want to talk to Mou.”

Sergio quickly prayed for Mourinho to be somewhere he couldn’t hear David call him “Mou”, for David’s own good.

“Yes. What mood is he in today?”

“Um... I’d say not much more pissed than usual. That still means a lot, though,” David said. “Why?”

“I need to tell him something he won’t be too happy hearing about.”

“Did you fuck anything up?” David asked with certain curiosity, like he was waiting for everyone to fuck things up so that they could become his kindred souls.

“Not really. But that doesn’t mean he won’t blow the office up after I tell him.”

“Sure. I’ll put you through and evacuate myself, then! Good luck.”

There was a clack and then Mourinho’s voice sounded from the speaker.

“Mourinho. I hope you have good news, Ramos.”

“Yes. F...Torres met Agger. Agger gave him the job, it seems. Well, but I’ll need you to talk to the Merseyside police.”

“Could you tell me anything that makes sense?” Mourinho growled. “What does now the Merseyside police have to do with your _Ftorres_?”

Shit.

“They need to ensure he won’t get caught when he robs a bank.”

“WHAT?”

Shit. David Luiz certainly knew what he was doing when he evacuated himself.

 


	6. Six

José lifted his head when the door to his office opened.

“Mr. Rodgers, sir!” David Luiz announced.

“Thanks, Luiz!”

José immediately regretted being polite for once as Luiz rewarded him with a happy grin that was probably going to haunt José until the end of the day, or even in his sleep.

Brendan Rodgers walked in and shook José’s hand.

“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting,” José said. “I had an important phone call.”

“No problem,” Rodgers assured him. “I had the best coffee ever.”

“Well...” José said, trying hard not to wince at that remark. “I have to talk to you about our plan. We need your help.”

“My help in what?” Rodgers asked.

“Gerrard’s group appointed Torres to rob a bank. We need you to assure he won’t get caught.”

“Excuse me?” Rodgers frowned. “Do you realize what you’re asking for? If it was only the money, then maybe, but you are asking me to protect a criminal instead of protecting people! What if he kills someone? Takes hostages?”

“I was assured nobody would die.”

“By who? By Torres?”

“By agent Ramos.”

“But agent Ramos will not go to that bank holding Torres’ hand, will he?”

Mourinho pursed his lips. Well, he still had his most powerful argument.

“I spoke to Abramovich about it and he agreed with everything.”

Rodgers looked like he took a sip of sour milk.

“Well, then... I’ll see what I can do.”

 

***

 

Pepe Reina closed the fridge and handed Fernando a bottle of beer.

“So, you met Agger.”

Fernando nodded.

“It was close, but I survived it.”

Pepe looked at him and sighed.

“You know, Agger is... a bit fucked up when it comes to certain things.”

“I noticed. And ‘a bit fucked up’ is an euphemism.”

“Yeah, well...” Pepe said and scratched his head. “Nobody knows why, though. I’ve heard he has some kind of story. I mean, from when he was still in Denmark.”

“We all have our stories, Pepe,” Fernando said thoughtfully.

Pepe nodded. A strange, heavy silence fell between them. Then Pepe coughed.

“Have you seen the papers already?” he asked, reaching for the newest issue of Daily Mirror.

“Am I there?” Fernando grinned.

“Heavily mentioned,” Pepe nodded. “Most of the page is taken by a huge picture of some José Mourinho, though, whoever the hell he is.”

Fernando looked at the page Pepe opened the newspaper on. There indeed was a big picture of Mourinho in his impeccably ironed shirt and expensive suit. It was obvious he took care of taking the right pose to flash his Delacour watch. He looked self-assured and composed. Certainly the picture was taken before he found out about the planned bank robbery.

“They’re making me a monster again,” Fernando sighed.

“Not like they don’t have bases for it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Fernando put the empty bottle on the table and looked out of the window.

“I better go. Agger reportedly doesn’t like waiting, Škrtel says.”

Pepe chuckled.

“Škrtel knows Agger well, so take his advice seriously.”

“Alright. See you, Pepe.”

 

***

 

Luis Suárez thought that he was hallucinating, and there would be a reasonable explication for it, given the state he was in after Falcao’s men’s methods of ‘negotiating’. Well, what else should he think, seeing Seba Coates having a serious debate with El fucking Tigre Falcao?

“Thing is,” Seba was saying. “Gerrard doesn’t really know how things are here. He made a mistake not to contact you before making the deal with Tévez, and he asked me to present you his apologies.”

“I will buy nothing for his apologies,” Falcao snapped.

“He also asked me to tell you that he is willing to make the deal with you,” Seba said calmly. “Your conditions and your price, if you’re interested.”

“Good,” Falcao said. “I don’t take the money for nothing. But I want serious business. Tell Gerrard that my stuff is of the best quality. Payment to my bank account in Monaco, no risks there either.”

“I’ll tell him.”

Falcao nodded and glanced at Luis and the two men standing next to him.

“And now take your rubbish of a partner and get out of here before I change my mind.”

Luis shook his head in disbelief when he sat next to Seba in his car.

“Did you just make it all up?” he asked.

“No way, I called Gerrard and he told me to tell Falcao exactly this,” Seba said and turned to him. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah... I’ll be fine. My teeth are still there, so...”

“That’s the most important part of you, eh?” Seba laughed.

“How did you find me?”

“Tévez. He wasn’t too eager to tell me anything at first, but when he saw my shooting skills, he gave up.”

Luis chuckled before giving Seba a serious look.

“You could have just gotten out of here.”

“No, I fucking couldn’t.”

Luis sighed deeply.

“I don’t know if I should thank you, spank you, bite you or kiss you.”

“All combined would be really nice,” Seba grinned.

 

***

 

Fernando was sitting on the sofa at Agger’s place. There were two other guys and Fernando couldn’t help but wonder whether they once went through the similar initiation as he did with Agger a few days ago. Judging from the nervous looks anytime Agger addressed them a word, they did.

“So, is everything clear?” Agger asked.

One of the guys nodded. Agger turned to the other one.

“Coutinho? Is it clear or you still haven’t learned fucking English?”

“’S clear,” Coutinho mumbled.

“Fine. So fuck off now.”

The two guys got up and went to the door. Fernando moved.

“Not you!” Agger snapped.

Fernando felt his stomach twist. He was quite sure he wouldn’t survive another of Agger’s lessons in such short period of time. The bruises on his hips weren’t entirely gone yet. The bruises on his dignity would probably stay there forever.

“We’re not done yet,” Agger said and got up.

Fernando took a sharp breath. Agger walked over to a wardrobe in the corner of the room. When he turned back to Fernando, he was holding two guns.

“Promised them to you, didn’t I?” he grinned.

Fernando let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. He reached for them, trying not to show that he had been thinking about anything else. It was strange to hold a gun again. Fernando almost forgot how it felt.

“I also got a message for you.”

“A message?” Fernando blinked.

“From Steven Gerrard. He asked me to tell you that if you do anything to bring the Interpol on us, you will wish you were never born.”

Fernando tried to stay calm and composed.

“I guess he read the papers, then.”

“We all did. And we don’t really like the fact that José Mourinho is after you, but we’re willing to give you a chance. But if it was to endanger us, I will personally shoot you and deliver your body to this Mourinho’s office, I hope it’s clear.”

“Absolutely clear.”

“Good. I’ll take you back now. Have something to do in the city.”

 

***

 

Sergio was leaning over a wall, tapping his foot on the pavement. He was starting to understand why so many of his colleagues smoked. If it was true that it helped with the nerves, Sergio would probably give in the bad habit right then.

Hearing footsteps approaching, he looked up. Fernando grinned at him.

“Were afraid I was already in Mexico?” he asked.

“No,” Sergio snapped. “I don’t think you would get too far without a passport.”

“Like it was so difficult to get a false one,” Fernando snorted.

There was a sound of a car somewhere behind them. Sergio didn’t almost notice, but Fernando tensed immediately.

“Sergio...” Fernando said.

“What?”

“Don’t move.”

He leaned closer and pressed his lips against Sergio’s. Sergio felt like he couldn’t move even if he wanted to. Fernando took his time exploring his mouth before pulling back a little bit, hand still rested on Sergio’s cheek.

“What...” Sergio started.

“Agger,” Fernando whispered.

Sergio just blinked.

“Agger is watching us,” Fernando explained. “Don’t look there.”

It was like telling Sergio there was a dinosaur behind him and he shouldn’t look back, but he managed to resist the urge. Fernando smiled at him sweetly and Sergio felt a bit sick and strangely calm at the same time. There was the sound of a car engine behind them and then silence.

“Alright, he’s gone,” Fernando said. “Shall we go?”

Sergio felt like punching him and he didn’t know why. He needed a shot of something really strong, really soon.

“He doesn’t seem to trust you much,” he said when they were going back to their house.

“Trusting someone in this world is a way to hell,” Fernando said. “Besides, your boss constantly bragging in the papers isn’t helping much. Gerrard is not too happy to know that Interpol is after me.”

“Well, I can’t tell Mourinho to stop,” Sergio snapped.

“You fucking should.”

Sergio unlocked the door of the apartment. Fernando sat on the sofa and then threw two guns on the table. Sergio gulped.

“What...”

“A present from Agger,” Fernando said calmly. “Surprised I haven’t killed you yet even though I had the opportunity?”

Sergio couldn’t say he was surprised. Rather confused. Whatever it was showing on his face, though, it made Fernando laugh.

“It would be interesting to kiss you and shoot you, I have to admit. But I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why?” Sergio asked dryly.

Fernando gave him the cheeky, mocking grin.

“Maybe I like you. Maybe I hope for another kiss.”

“Not even in your wildest dreams,” Sergio snapped, walked out of the apartment and banged the door behind him.

Only when he was in the middle of the street, he realized that he left Fernando Torres in an unlocked apartment with two guns. For some reason, it wasn’t the biggest worry on his mind.

 

***

 

Steven Gerrard switched off the TV and leaned back on the sofa.

“Long day, huh?” Agger asked.

“At least no Mourinho on the news,” Steven said. “Also, Carroll hasn’t blown up anything yet and Suárez is alive. So a long day, but a good one.”

“But we will have to deal with Falcao, right?”

“Oh, whatever,” Steven waved his hand. “I would be more pissed if we lost Suárez.”

“You like him,” Agger chuckled.

“Well, sometimes he pisses me off, when he does one of his stupidities, but he’s good,” Steven shrugged. “What about that Torres?”

Agger laughed.

“If he manages to get something decent out of Coutinho and Flanagan, then he’s worth keeping.”

“You seriously gave him Coutinho and Flanagan?” Steven gave him an incredulous look.

“Well, if he’s good and it goes well, only good for them. If he fucks up and they end up in jail or dead, it won’t be like we’ll cry for them for too long. Maybe I’d shed a tear for Coutinho, I actually like that little fucker, but sure as hell I won’t give him Sturridge, eh?”

“Alright,” Steven nodded. “You know we actually need that money, with Falcao and all. So they better not fuck it up.”

He reached for the can of beer on the table.

“Is he really that pretty in real life as in the papers and on the news?” he asked.

Agger chuckled.

“Maybe even more. Fucking freckles and all. You’d like him.”

“Maybe one day I’ll try him out,” Steven smirked. “Maybe.”

 

***

 

Sergio pulled out his phone. He almost dialed Mourinho’s number, but then stopped. In the state he was in, he would probably blurt out something that would get him fired within minutes. He needed to calm down first, but he didn’t know how. Then he reached for his last option and dialed Iker’s number.

Iker picked up almost immediately, which suggested he was still at work and bored.

“Hi, Iker,” Sergio sighed.

“Sergio!” Iker’s voice sounded delighted, but he didn’t ask Sergio how he was or anything, just waited for him to speak, taking the opportunity to babble before saying what he had to say from him.

_Damned psychologists._

“Eh... how are you all there?” Sergio tried.

“Without Mourinho? Paradise on Earth!” Iker laughed. “Though Florentino is nosy and Modrić is bossy. Oh, and Özil is fired. What did you need?”

At any other time, Sergio would probably want to know why Özil was fired, but right now he couldn’t care less.

“I think I’m fucked,” he said.

“Why do you think so?” Iker asked in his professional voice and Sergio would kick him if he could do it over the phone.

“You know what I’m working on here, right?”

“Guarding a guy called Fernando Torres, who’s supposed to infiltrate Gerrard’s group. Yeah.”

“Well, this Fernando Torres kissed me today.”

There was a weird noise coming from the phone. A while later Sergio realized the noise was in fact Iker choking on whatever he was eating or drinking.

“OK, elaborate,” he said then.

“Well, he told this guy from Gerrard’s group that we were sort of... boyfriends. And this guy was watching us and he kissed me.”

“Oh. What’s the problem, then?” Iker asked.

“The problem is...” Sergio took a deep breath. “I can’t fucking stand him, I absolutely hate him, everything about him, the way he looks at me and speaks to me makes me sick because I know who he is and what he did, but...”

“But?”

“But I fucking liked that kiss.”

Iker laughed. _The fucker._

“Ramos, we all know you would like it even if Godzilla kissed you, if Godzilla was male. We’ve talked about it and I suggested you finally get in a serious relationship.”

“Thank you, but it’s not the right time for that. And I don’t kiss just everyone, alright? At least not when I’m sober.”

“Well, then why did you like that kiss?”

“Shouldn’t you tell me that, you’re the psychologist!” Sergio snapped.

“Police psychologist.”

“Whatever.”

When Iker spoke again, his professional tone was gone and it made Sergio even more worried.

“Listen, Sergio, put your shit together. This is not a fling at a disco, this could result in something worse than a hangover and sore ass in the morning, alright? Remind yourself of who you are and who he is. Define the boundaries and keep them.”

“Okay,” Sergio sighed. “Any tip how to do it?”

“Well, who wouldn’t you want to scold you if you did something wrong?”

“Probably you.”

“Oh, fuck you, Sergio!” Iker growled. “Well, then anytime you feel like doing something stupid, imagine me giving you a scolding, alright?”

“I’ll try. Thanks, Iker.”

“No problem. Don’t you want to know why Özil is fired?”

“Next time, maybe.”

He could practically hear Iker pout.

“I have to call Mourinho now,” he said apologetically.

“Alright. Say ‘hi’ from me to him. Or better not.”

 


	7. Seven

Fernando sat in the van with tinted windows, trying hard to focus. It wasn’t easy with Flanagan’s flinching anytime he moved and Coutinho chewing gum pretty loudly, which was probably his way of calming down. There was also Kelly, sitting behind the wheel as Agger finally appointed him as the driver. Luckily Kelly seemed to be more experienced and looked almost bored.

“Alright, guys,” Fernando said. “Get ready. Nobody forgets their guns, nobody forgets to load them, nobody does anything that we haven’t previously agreed on.”

“You sound like a fucking kindergarten teacher,” Kelly chuckled.

“Shut up!” Fernando growled.

“I can’t blame you when Agger gave you our kindergarten to work with, though,” Kelly shrugged.

“Why are we doing it at this hour?” Flanagan asked in a slightly shaky voice. “There’s plenty of people.”

“Because at this hour, the security guys are changing,” Fernando said calmly. “And that’s what interests us.”

He watched the bank entrance attentively. Flanagan was right, there were too many people around. But it was not a situation he wouldn’t know. He took a breath and turned to the others.

“Let’s go.”

 

***

 

The familiarity of the situation that he had feared would overcome him was actually helping.

He was right to estimate that Coutinho wasn’t the one to shout at the employees and the hostages. On the other side, Flanagan would, as it apparently helped him ventilate the nervousness. Alright, having someone who’d scare them wasn’t a bad thing. And Fernando thought Flanagan was quite intimidating. _Who’d say that guy had it in him?_

He checked that Coutinho was dealing with the security guards, and damn, dealing well with them. _Maybe after all Agger was underrating them._

Removing his attention from his accomplices, he aimed the gun at the teller in front of him.

“Open the vault.”

She first looked at the gun, then at him, like she was estimating if he was a real robber or some funny fucker. To make the decision easier for her, Fernando fired a shot in the pot with a fake plant that was behind her. She screamed when pieces of the pot flew all around.

“There’s a time lock, I can’t open it now!” she blurted out.

“Sure, just open it, we’ll wait, then.”

He wasn’t one to start shooting people because the vault had a time lock. He knew it had one, the plans Agger had were good enough. But still, the fifteen minutes were a long time. Mainly with ten hostages and not really experienced accomplices.

 

***

 

“I’m glad we can finally get out of here,” Luis sighed.

“Steven will be glad as well,” Seba said. “You know what... Carroll.”

Luis chuckled and immediately hated himself for it. His ribs still hurt like hell.

“I still can’t believe you did what you did.”

“What exactly?” Seba frowned.

“You disobeyed Gerrard, twice, almost shot Tévez, talked Gerrard into dealing with Falcao, went to Falcao and got me out.”

“Yeah,” Seba shrugged. “Just a normal day in the office...”

Luis frowned and grabbed the front of his shirt.

“Come here, I’ll bite you!”

Seba giggled.

“Again?”

“Apparently the first time wasn’t enough.”

 

***

 

A kid started to cry somewhere. Fernando fucking hated it. Sooner or later it was going to unnerve someone.

_Bingo. Right. Flanagan._

“Fucking make him stop!” he yelled, probably at the kid’s mother. “Why the fuck do you take a kid with you to a bank? Just drop him somewhere in those play corner things where he can play with some other little fuckers!”

“Don’t shout or he’s not going to stop!” the mother’s voice cut through his rant, strangely firm and composed.

“We could see about that!” Flanagan snapped.

Fernando quickly turned to him.

“Calm down, man!” he said.

In that very moment he more felt than saw the employee move. Fernando turned back to her. She had that guilty face that meant nothing good.

“Did you activate the silent alarm?” he asked.

_Damn it. Bank employees must have strangely altered brains._ If someone was trying to rob a bank Fernando worked at, he would just damn pray he would survive it. Not trying to play the hero, even less if he was a 5’5’’ skinny thing in a white blouse.

“Fucking answer me!” he shouted at the teller who instinctively cowered when he aimed the gun back at her head. “Did you activate the silent alarm?”

The girl was in tears and the only thing she managed to do was to nod.

_Fuck._ If he knew a stronger word than ‘fuck’, Fernando would use it. He had promised Sergio, who had promised Mourinho, who had promised Brendan fucking Rodgers, that nobody would die here. On the other hand, if Flanagan and Coutinho reported to Agger that Fernando was a nice guy letting girls almost have them arrested, somebody would surely die here and it was him.

He walked around the desk when the mechanical sound let him know that the vault has just opened. He quickly counted in his head. The police could be there in five or seven minutes, normally. But because he knew that Rodgers had been informed about it, they wouldn’t hurry like that. Ten minutes. That was plenty of time.

He reached for the girl who yelped when he grabbed her around the shoulders. Then he beckoned Coutinho.

“Take the money. Me and the darling here are going to have a little chat.”

He pushed the girl inside the little office aside and closed the door.

 

***

 

José Mourinho was trying hard to concentrate on work, ignoring the muffled sound of music from Luiz’ office. When a phone rang, José at first reached for the one on his desk when he realized it was in fact his cell phone. He really had to change the ringtone to a less common one.

“Mourinho!” he said.

“Rodgers,” sounded on the other end. “We had the secret alarm from the bank on George Street. Do we go there?”

“Of fucking course,” José growled. “But don’t be in a hurry, alright?”

Rodgers gave some vague affirmation and hung up. José opened the door and peaked inside Luiz’ office. It was seemingly empty, but then a familiar mop of hair emerged from underneath the table.

“What the hell are you doing, Luiz?” José snapped.

“Sorry... pen escaped!” Luiz said and waved his Chelsea FC pen in front of José’s face.

José sighed.

“Can I entrust you with an important task?” he asked.

“Oh, sure, sir!”

“Fine. You’ll now switch on the TV and watch the news on BBC until I come back from lunch.”

“Is that all?” Luiz frowned.

“For someone like you, it’s maybe too much!” José barked and headed out of the office.

 

***

 

The girl was a crying mess. Well, on one hand Fernando could understand that. On the other, if you don’t have balls to deal with consequences, don’t do idiotic things in the first place.

He rolled down the blinds on the door window and the window to the street. They needed to be out in five minutes approximately. _Plenty of time._

“Lay down on the floor.”

He waited for three seconds.

“Lay down on the fucking floor!”

Well, she did, but they weren’t getting anywhere like this. Fernando crouched next to her.

“Now you’ll do what I tell you and maybe your brain will stay inside your head, alright?” he said quietly. “So. Don’t move. Stay quiet.”

He aimed the gun in the opposite corner of the room and shot. The girl looked at him like he was an alien who just landed on Earth.

“That’s it,” he whispered. “Stay quiet. Don’t move. Don’t move.”

He backed out of the office and closed the door again. Flanagan was looking at him with some nervous impatience while Coutinho, holding two bags with money, looked rather terrified.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here!” Fernando said.

They headed to the door. Flanagan walked out first, carefully checking the street. Fernando held the door for Coutinho and then moved to get out. In that very moment he saw one of the security guys move. Out of pure instinct he turned around briskly and fired two shots.

Only the second after he realized that he was now royally fucked.

 

***

 

José Mourinho came back from lunch to find David Luiz watching the BBC news as he had told him to do. However, he didn’t remember this order including the Brazilian sitting on José’s sofa with his dirty shoes on the expensive leather upholstery and eating Chinese takeaway.

“Luiz!” he barked.

Only to startle the secretary so that a noodle flied from his chopsticks onto the sofa.

“I watched the news, sir!” Luiz informed him enthusiastically.

“And?”

“Do you want me to tell you everything they said? I made notes. So, Chelsea will likely not get into Champions League this year, that’s sad. There was a panda born in a zoo on Taiwan. And...”

“This is not what I want to know!” José snapped.

“It would be easier if you told me what you wanted to know.”

“Any news from Liverpool?” José asked, folding his arms.

“Hell, yes, sir, how did you know?”

“I’m a fucking psychic. So?”

“There was a bank robbery like an hour ago!” Luiz said and looked in his notes. “Yeah, three guys stormed there, held the people inside while they were waiting for the vault to open and then shot a guard while they were getting away.”

“They did what?” José shouted.

“Shot a guard,” Luiz repeated.

José felt the cold sweat appear on his forehead. In the next moment, his cellphone rang.

“Mourinho.”

“It’s Brendan Rodgers. If I once more believe in your promises, I will personally kick my own buttocks, Mourinho!”

José sat in his chair with an exasperated sigh. He really needed to talk to Ramos.

 

***

 

Fernando didn’t even listen to whatever conversation was going on around him. He was too busy thinking about the consequences this would have for him. In the best case he’d land back in Wakefield by the end of the day. In the worst, there was agent Carneiro waiting for him in the apartment when he got back.

“Aren’t we going to drop it at Agger’s place?” Coutinho asked.

“What?” Kelly chuckled, driving calmly like they were going on a picnic. “You think Agger wants two bags of stolen money at his place? He’s not dumb like you, lad! We’re going to Reina.”

Fernando just laughed exasperatedly. _Reina, always the scapegoat._

Suddenly a phone rang in the car and everyone jumped up. Kelly turned back with a murderous expression.

“Agger said no phones, for fuck’s sake!” he growled. “If it’s your mother calling you, Flanagan, tell her you’re busy robbing a bank and will call her later.”

Flanagan answered the phone.

“I said no fucking phones!” Agger’s voice snapped from the speaker.

“I... I though...” Flanagan started.

“No, you didn’t think at all. Pass me Kelly.”

Flanagan handed the phone over to Kelly.

“Yeah?”

“Take the money to Škrtel’s.”

Kelly frowned.

“Why?”

Agger’s voice sounded the most dangerous Fernando has ever heard.

“Why? Did you just fucking ask me why?”

“Well, sorry, but you’re changing the plan in the last minute, so... Why don’t we go to Reina’s?” Kelly asked.

There was a moment of silence before Agger spoke again.

“Because Reina’s fucking dead.”

 

***

 

José threw the phone back on his desk and sighed. Then he pushed the button on his desk phone.

“Luiz?” he barked.

“Yes?”

“Make me some coffee.”

“Sure, sir. Coming right away!”

In a few minutes David Luiz indeed danced in with a big mug of coffee. José decided to ignore the picture of Bart Simpson on the mug.

“Do you also want biscuits?” Luiz asked.

“What? I don’t want any fucking biscuits!”

“You’re right, English biscuits are rubbish,” Luiz nodded.

José sighed.

“Do me another favor, Luiz,” he said and pushed his cell phone to the secretary. “Change the ringtone for me. This phone is so complicated to work with that I only managed to accidentally switch it on the Chinese version. Put there something that doesn’t resemble the desk phone.”

“Sure, sir. I’ll bring it back to you in a minute,” Luiz grinned and went back to his office.

 

***

 

It was honestly too much to take. Fernando wanted to just find a calm place and think everything through, but he wasn’t the one to think things through here.

He carefully opened the door to the apartment and took a look around. At least there was no agent Carneiro. Just a terribly pissed Sergio Ramos sitting on the sofa.

Fernando stopped in the middle of the room and looked at him.

“Why the fuck did I ever trust you?” Sergio asked pretty much nobody, because the question was addressed to the thick air between them.

“Just listen to me, Sergio, I didn’t want...”

“Listen?” Sergio shouted and launched himself at Fernando so fast that before he could even blink, he was pushed face first into the nearest wall.

Sergio probably was a special agent for a reason.

“You will now listen to me, Torres! We didn’t get you out of jail so that you could be going around killing innocent people! I’ve already had Mourinho yell at me and I really don’t feel like telling him you’re too good or important to be kept in this case.”

“I didn’t want to kill anyone,” Fernando breathed out because hell, Sergio twisting his arm behind his back wasn’t the most pleasant thing.

“No, then why did you do it?”

“It was just an instinct... he would have killed me, it was him or me...”

“And why the hell do you think your life was the one more important?”

“Because I’m fucking sane, I wouldn’t let myself be killed, nobody would!”

It was getting hard to breathe and he couldn’t say if because of Sergio twisting his arm or because of Sergio grinding into him a little bit too much.

“I think I should just call Mourinho and tell him to call this off. We’ve been idiots to think you could ever do something good,” Sergio said and let go of him.

Fernando spun around briskly.

“No, no, no, Sergio, trust me! Trust me!” he grabbed Sergio’s arm. “What about the girl?”

Sergio stopped and turned to him.

“What girl?”

“There was a girl, the teller. She activated the silent alarm. I... I knew Flanagan and Coutinho would tell Agger I was a coward if I just left it at that, but I didn’t want to kill her. I took her in the office and shot in the wall to make it look like I shot her, but I didn’t, okay? I really didn’t want to kill anyone, I swear. Why would I care about a girl if I went there with the intention to kill people?”

Sergio was silent for a moment. He knew there really was a teller who said one of the robbers left her alive. Only that Sergio assumed it was one of the youngsters who just chickened out in the last moment.

“It was an instinct, pure instinct, Sergio, I swear.”

“Like last time, yeah? It was also an instinct?”

“That was different. We’re not talking about the last time, we’re talking about this time.”

Sergio kept just looking at him.

“Please, Sergio,” Fernando whispered. “Please, I’m sorry about what happened, but I didn’t want it.”

Sergio gave him another long stare.

“Alright,” he said then. “I’ll tell Mourinho what you told me.”

“Thank you.”

Fernando walked over to the sofa and plopped down on it.

“Pepe is dead,” he said then.

“What?” Sergio glared at him.

“Pepe Reina is dead. Agger called us when we were going back. We were supposed to take the money to his place, but Agger told us to go to Škrtel’s instead.”

“You mean that Agger killed Reina?”

“No!” Fernando rolled his eyes. “He didn’t. Why would he do that?”

“Well, I don’t know, because it’s Daniel Agger? I don’t think he needs much to kill someone.”

“Agger is not a thug killing people upon seeing them,” Fernando objects.

“I see you’ve already become friends,” Sergio snorts.

“Far from that, but I’m just correcting your view on him. You’re jumping into conclusions just like you do with me, because you’ve read our records.”

“Sure. So who, according to you, killed Reina, if not your best friend Agger?”

“How the hell am I supposed to know?” Fernando snapped. “I’m just telling you the facts. He’s dead. The money is at Škrtel’s. I’m meeting Agger again in two days.”

Sergio nodded and headed to the door. It surprised him that Fernando didn’t even ask for bringing him dinner this time. Probably he really had bad conscience.

 

***

 

José Mourinho jumped up when he was woken up by loud music that resembled samba. He fumbled with his blanket for a while, then looked around to locate the object causing the terrible noise.

His eyes fell on the lit up cell phone on his nightstand. He dabbed his finger in the “answer” button and tried to control his breath.

He was determined to kill David Luiz as soon as he would walk in the office in the morning.

 


	8. Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first chapter written after the hiatus.

Roman Abramovich picked up his cell phone that was vibrating on the desk and answered the call.

“Abramovich.”

“I did what you wanted, boss.”

Abramovich smiled. He liked when things went the way he wanted them to go.

“Great.”

“I still don’t understand why.”

“Because apparently Mourinho isn’t as competent as I thought he was, and if he tolerates Torres to take such a long time, I will not wait for an eternity to get to Gerrard. Killing Reina should accelerate the things a little bit. It means now Torres will either go directly to Agger with everything, or to someone else who might prove more useful.”

“This wasn’t my question,” the voice in the phone said, sounding very annoyed. “I wanted to ask why I have to kill drunk thugs in their smelly dens. I thought I was worth more important tasks. Anyone could do this.”

Abramovich smiled apologetically, even though his interlocutor of course couldn’t see him.

“Because I needed to be sure it would be done properly. And you’re the best one, Eva.”

 

***

 

Fernando woke up to someone talking somewhere in the apartment. He got up from the sofa and tiptoed to Sergio’s bedroom. He felt a bit like a nosy neighbor, but in his situation, there was nothing wrong with a bit of eavesdropping.

“No, I simply thought that you would know... We are getting somewhere, he’s meeting Agger tonight after all... No, no, wait, boss, you can’t. I get it, but you can’t arrest Agger. Without Agger you’re not getting to Gerrard, and besides, you have nothing on him... He did, but who will testify against him?”

The person on the other side of the line apparently gave an answer. Sergio’s loud snort followed.

“He surely won’t. Seems like they’re best buddies.”

Fernando rolled his eyes. _Him and Agger best buddies, Sergio couldn’t be more wrong._

“No, I’d suggest you leave Agger alone. If you want to get someone, have someone to try looking up certain Carroll. Seems like he’s the one occupying the post Torres might get so far.”

_Poor fellow, Sergio just sacrificed you_ , Fernando thought. Then a crazy thought flew through his mind. He’s been wondering all night who might have been behind Pepe’s death, but this theory never came to his mind. _What if Pepe was another one like this?_ It still didn’t make sense why anyone from Interpol would shoot him, but the fact that Pepe went on with his life for all the those years and now suddenly died a few weeks after Fernando turned up was quite disturbing.

He heard Sergio ending the call and quickly tiptoed back to the sofa. He needed to think through the tactics. He wanted to know who killed Pepe and somehow wasn’t keen on the Interpol arresting Carroll either, even though he never actually saw that guy. But he knew Agger wasn’t dumb and so many unfortunate events for Gerrard’s group would sooner or later start to look suspicious to him. And the first one to blame would be of course Fernando. _Screw Mourinho and everyone else, Agger’s wrath would be much worse._

Sergio walked in and looked at Fernando suspiciously.

“You’re up already?” he asked.

“Of course, with you yelling sensitive information at Mourinho like that...” Fernando shrugged.

“I... you didn’t...”

“I appreciate your decision to leave Agger alone, but I thought Mourinho had a better plan than to go around arresting everyone.”

“That’s not your business!” Sergio snapped.

“I just thought that maybe you didn’t realize that if you start arresting people all of a sudden, it won’t take Agger long until he realizes who’s behind it. Me. And what will Agger do when he does realize it? Kill me.”

Sergio was just looking at him bluntly. Fernando sighed and lay back on the sofa.

“I forgot. You don’t care.”

Sergio took a deep breath.

“No, I...”

Suddenly an image of angry Iker Casillas popped up in his mind. “Sergio!” the imaginative Iker yelled. “Don’t start with sentimental shit or you’ll end up like Özil, or worse!” Sergio had no idea how his subconscious came up with Özil when he didn’t even know why Özil was fired. But he was now convinced that Iker was a damn good psychologist because this thing really worked.

“You’re supposed to do what I tell you!” he snapped. “Act in a way that won’t get you killed. I’m just doing my work.”

“So am I.”

“You’re trying to save your ass,” Sergio corrected him. “So far you’ve done nothing bigger than killing an innocent man, so better don’t start with moralizing, Torres!”

He walked out of the apartment and banged the door behind him. Fernando frowned. If his persuading skills were not effective enough to convince Sergio anymore, it was definitely a warning signal.

 

***

 

José Mourinho stormed in his office and threw his leather bag on the ground. It was a sign that he was really angry. Normally he would never throw his expensive stuff just anywhere.

“Luiz!” he barked.

“Sir?” David Luiz approached him carefully.

José took a deep breath.

“First, you will immediately change my ringtone to something that doesn’t sound like Brazilian carnival. Second, you will make me coffee, and third, you will call up a meeting for this afternoon.”

“Who should I call?”

“Terry, Lampard and mainly Cole. Tell them it’s urgent.”

“Yes. Sure. Will do, sir.”

José sighed when Luiz danced out of his office with José’s phone. He was sure that if Abramovich called him today, he would tell him something he wouldn’t like.

 

***

 

Steven Gerrard quickly snapped his laptop shut when the door of their headquarters screeched. Then he groaned and opened it again when he saw the visitor was just Luis Suárez, accompanied by Coates who had a slightly more smug face on than Steven remembered.

“Welcome back,” Steven said and looked at them. “So you’re both alive. Congratulations.”

“That belongs to Seba,” Luis grinned. “Congratulations on Carroll not blowing anything up.”

“Thanks. Glad that you’re back, though. I suppose Falcao agreed on the deal, then?”

“He said he would do it. Asks for more money, but ensures secure payment and best quality stuff,” Seba shrugged.

“Okay. We can live with giving him a bit of extra money. We can use the money from the bank.”

“So this new guy knows his thing?” Luis raised his brows.

“I guess. He managed to rob a bank with Coutinho and Flanagan. Though it wasn’t so smooth.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard he shot two people.”

“Two?” Steven raised his brows.

“Yeah, Coutinho said two,” Seba nodded and gave Steven a confused look.

“The news said one.”

“I didn’t watch the news, but Coutinho said two... and I know he’s not the brightest person out there, but he should be able to count to two,” Luis frowned. “He said he shot a teller who activated the silent alarm and then a guard.”

“That’s strange,” Steven murmured and reached for his phone, dialing a number. “Yeah, Agger? Do you have a minute?”

 

***

 

When Sergio came back, he found Fernando watching TV like nothing ever happened. Some sitcom was on, but despite the laughter coming from the TV, Fernando's face looked indifferent. Sergio switched the TV off and sat in an armchair.

“We need to talk,” he said.

“You sound like a wife before a divorce,” Fernando snorted. “Alright, we’ll talk. What about?”

“You.”

Fernando raised his brows and folded his arms.

“Sure. What do you want to know, Sergio?”

“Why, if you keep saying that you are no monster, you pleaded guilty to all that is in your file?”

“Why does it interest you?” Fernando asked.

“You asked me to trust you. I did what you wanted. I let you go your way with Agger. I told Mourinho not to arrest Agger yet, and I told him to leave Carroll alone for now. I want to know if that trust is justified. So?”

“Well, I pleaded guilty because in fact I really did it. I did rob three banks, I did shoot the guards and policemen, and I did use a child hostage to get away.”

“Then how can you say you’re not a monster?”

“Because I had a reason to do it, Sergio.”

“A reason to kill six people and use an innocent child to get away?” Sergio snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“I didn’t harm the little girl, I would never do anything like that.”

“Because you’re a gentleman, right?”

“Because I have kids myself.”

Sergio blinked and looked at him like Fernando just fell on Earth in a spaceship.

“You... have... children?” he sputtered.

“I see the thought of me having any offspring whatsoever disgusts you,” Fernando said quietly.

“No, it... it surp... shocks me. There is nothing about you having kids in the files.”

“Again your files,” Fernando smirked. “The problem is, Sergio, what you have in your files is everything Fernando José Torres Sanz ever did in his life. What I did in my life wasn’t all done under this name.”

“You had a fake identity,” Sergio stated.

“Yes. I had this professional life as Fernando Torres, and a personal life as Fernando Calderón.”

“Fuck me,” Sergio actually had to laugh.

Fernando didn’t laugh.

“Well, then what happened?” Sergio asked.

“The two lives mingled.”

Sergio leaned back in the armchair, letting him know he was listening.

“The two first robberies were a piece of cake. The third one, though... I knew it was close to impossible. So I refused to do it. But the people I worked for wouldn’t let me out so easily. They threatened my wife and children. I had no other choice.”

Sergio was looking at him skeptically. He knew better than to believe sappy stories.

“What happened to your wife and children then?”

“My wife found out my name wasn’t Fernando Calderón, and that I wasn’t a truck driver but a criminal the English police was after. She took the kids and returned to Spain. I think she won’t ever have to bother with a divorce since I never officially existed. At least I haven’t heard from her ever since. I also haven’t seen my children ever since.”

He ran a hand over his face.

“When you look at it like this, they are not even my children. They are children of some Fernando Calderón that doesn’t exist. Most likely she told them I was dead.”

“I suppose you never told anyone who the people you worked for were.”

“No, and I’m not even going to. That I was unable to find my wife and children doesn’t mean they wouldn’t know how to do it. I told the police who my partners were, and they assumed I was the head of the group. I couldn’t really disprove it.”

“So in other words, you could have gotten a lower sentence, but chose not to. And this is your only chance to ever get out of prison without risking your family’s lives,” Sergio said.

“Yes.”

“Alright.”

Fernando frowned.

“Alright? It’s all you have to say?”

Sergio got up and looked him in the eyes.

“And what did you expect? That I would cry? You want your freedom, fine, then earn it. I can’t give you more than what Abramovich promised you.”

“You can tell me that you trust me.”

“You want my trust?” Sergio folded his arms. “Then earn that too.”

 

***

 

Detective Cole was the first one to arrive at Mourinho's office. He refused the coffee Mourinho's secretary offered him, but didn’t say no to biscuits, mainly because they were with chocolate. When Terry and Lampard rejoined them, he already had five of them in his stomach. After all, with the time Mourinho's meetings usually took, it could easily be his only food until late night.

“Detective Cole,” José started. “Did you find anything about this Carroll?”

“Not much,” Cole said and opened a file. “Andrew Thomas Carroll, age twenty-five, born in Gateshead. We don’t have much more on him than we have on Gerrard. Some assault charges, nothing serious. Pub fights. Certainly nothing we could arrest him for, nor what would imply he is a part of a terrorist organization. With your permission, I dare to say that letting him be a part of any organization would probably result in its rapid decay.”

José cursed in his mind. Ramos was an incompetent prick who provided him with information not worth a column in the local paper.

“However, I managed to find something about those guys who robbed the army shop.”

“Really?” José growled.

“One of them seems to be here illegally, because he isn’t even in our database. The other one is Jonathon Patrick Flanagan, age twenty-one, from Liverpool. We could arrest him for the robbery.”

“Problem is that these two probably never even saw Gerrard in person,” Lampard made a face. “They could only lead us to Agger, and we don’t even need that. So I don’t know why we still haven’t arrested him.”

José ignored the ironic smirk.

“Because Agger would never betray Gerrard. So we need to get directly to him. Besides they are most likely up to something big and Agger’s arrest would only make them drop it.”

“If they’re planning some bombing, shouldn’t we want them to drop it?” Terry asked.

“We want to stop them and ensure it will not happen anymore, not just this time.”

“Well, then what about Torres? Is he even doing anything or is he just eating donuts somewhere?” Lampard asked.

José was asking that question himself, but he didn’t let it show.

“He’s meeting Agger again tomorrow. Let’s decide after that.”

All three men hummed skeptically. José cleared his throat.

“Gentlemen, I finally got the permission from Abramovich to speak about this. What I am going to tell you now is strictly confidential, though. I hope it is clear that it mustn’t leave this office.”

He waited for the men to nod their consent.

“After the mission is accomplished, Torres has to be eliminated. Letting him go is unacceptable under any circumstances, and locking him back in Wakefield wouldn't be a solution either as he could possibly spread some sensitive information about our structure and methods.”

“Sure,” Lampard nodded. “Who will do it?”

“Agent Ramos. He doesn’t know about it yet, but he will be informed when the right time comes.”

“Let’s hope he can hit Torres from one meter,” Terry sighed and Detective Cole choked on another chocolate biscuit.

“Well, that’s all for today. Thank you for coming,” José said.

The men got up and exchanged handshakes. None of them noticed that the door of the office was left ajar and that David Luiz’ curly head was peeking through it.

 


	9. Nine

José didn’t even lift his head when there was a knock on the door.

“Enter!” he called.

David Luiz walked in. José was so surprised that Luiz knocked on the door that he forgot all the usual insults.

“Yeah, sir, I needed to ask you a favor,” Luiz said and scratched his head. “Can I have a day off tomorrow?”

“What?” José muttered and looked up.

“A day off,” Luiz repeated. “You know, it's my grandmother's birthday and…”

“Stop there!” José growled. “I don't need to know all your family, I'm sure it's pretty big. Yeah, you can have a day off.”

Luiz grinned, but then gave him a worried look.

“You sure you won't miss me, sir?”

“Miss you?” José shouted. “Hell, tomorrow will be the best day of my life!”

 

***

 

Kelly picked Fernando up on Priory Road and drove him to Agger’s place. It was the first time there was no Škrtel and Fernando felt slightly better. Out of all the members of Gerrard’s group that he has met, he probably preferred Kelly. He was quiet, always went straight to the point and he seemed to be a reliable and loyal kind of guy.

Fernando walked inside while Kelly stayed outside, apparently checking something on the car. He looked around the place that was a living room, kitchen and bedroom all in one. Then he frowned. There was no sight of Agger. At least he thought so, before someone grabbed him from behind and shoved him face-first in the opposite wall. The tattooed forearms let him know who it was even before he could smell the distinct fragrance his mind would forever associate with Agger, and before Agger spoke. Fernando felt the blood pouring from his nose right away. Without a doubt it was broken.

“Tell me, Torres,” Agger growled. “Do I look like an idiot to you?”

“N-no,” Fernando replied truthfully.

Agger looked nothing like an idiot.

“Fine. Then why do you think I am one?”

“I don’t think...” he was cut short by Agger pulling his hair.

“I fucking warned you, Torres! Seems like you didn’t get it.”

Fernando's mind was racing, he was trying to figure out what could have unleashed the beast in Agger, what he had done to make him mad. Because figuring out meant surviving.

_There is no way he could know. Unless Mourinho really decided to arrest Carroll._ He decided to play dumb.

“What did I do?” he spat out.

“What did you do? More like what you didn’t do!”

Fernando desperately wished Agger would stop talking in riddles.

“I warned you. Twice. I told you I’d snap your neck if you did something behind our backs. And I did warn you that Gerrard would make sure you were never born if you brought the Interpol on us. You’re not yet a part of our group and you already broke all two!”

Agger’s hand left Fernando's hair, only to spin him around and push him back against the wall. This was bad. _So_ bad.

“I know nothing about the Interpol,” Fernando choked when Agger’s hand flew to his neck.

It wasn’t even squeezing yet, but he could imagine what it would feel like.

“You know nothing about that girl from the bank either?”

_Fuck._ It had to get out, he was naïve to think it wouldn’t. The two youngsters had to talk about it with Agger or someone else, and then the news gave a different story.

“Why... I didn’t have to kill her.”

“No? You didn’t? She activates the silent alarm and you fucking say thank you to that bitch?” Agger growled. “If you want to be a gentleman, Torres, fire a bullet in her head without touching her, that’s gentlemanlike in this world, if you forgot.”

Fernando knew that. Only he couldn’t play according to the rules of this world and Mourinho's rules at the same time. That was why he was fucked either way.

“And on top of it, you make it a theater play!” Agger added, pushing Fernando into an armchair with such force that it almost flipped over under his weight.

“I didn’t want to lose... the image in front of the youngsters,” he said then.

“Image? What image?” Agger chuckled. “Of the sissy you are? Fucking Flanagan is tougher than you!”

Agger walked over to the armchair.

“I don’t kill people just for the hell of it!” Fernando said in a more firm voice.

If Agger thought he was a sissy, he was wrong.

“Nor do I. If you don’t want to kill them, don’t let them give you a reason to kill them.”

“I know, I know,” Fernando sighed. “I got distracted.”

“Bad thing when you’re robbing a bank,” Agger said with a serious face, but at least the mockery was gone from his voice.

“You got the money, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, we did.”

“So do you need me or not?”

He kept his voice calm, but actually his heart was beating in his throat. If Agger told him to fuck off, he’d be going back to Wakefield for the rest of his life. He’d actually prefer Agger to kill him then, in whatever way.

Agger kept watching him attentively for long seconds. Probably the longest seconds in Fernando's life. Then he nodded slowly.

“Stick around. We might still find some use for you.”

 

***

 

Luis glanced over at Seba who was zipping up his black jacket and sighed.

“It’s already so late?” he asked.

“Yep. We’re supposed to meet Steven in half an hour.”

Luis groaned. He wasn’t quite over the jet lag yet, and also his body would rather stay in bed until the bruises on it would be gone. But if Steven called a meeting, not going there wasn’t even up for a discussion.

“Agger was supposed to find out what that shit with Torres was about,” Seba said when Luis finally dragged himself up. “Coutinho is even feeling guilty.”

“Why?” Luis frowned.

“That he said something that got Torres into trouble. Seems like that fucker wrapped the youngsters around his finger.”

“Anyone could wrap Coutinho around their finger,” Luis snorted. “Except Agger, because Coutinho is too terrified to approach him.”

They walked out of their apartment and got in the car. Their headquarters wasn’t too far away, but cars were always safer.

“You don’t trust that guy, do you?” Seba asked then.

“I don’t trust him shit. And I haven’t even seen him yet.”

 

***

 

“Oh my God.”

Sergio jumped up when Fernando walked in. He didn’t have time to wash the blood off his face anywhere, so he probably had to look like a truck hit him in the face.

“What happened?”

“Agger happened,” Fernando growled. “He doesn’t like people who play along the rules of cops.”

“Does he know?” Sergio asked with a worried face.

“No. He suspects. Or suspected. Maybe I managed to convince him.”

Sergio didn’t look any less worried. Fernando threw his jacket on the chair and sighed.

“If you excuse me, I have to wash my face.”

 

***

 

“I don’t know,” Agger sighed when Steven Gerrard handed him a can of beer. “I don’t know if he’s a snitch, but he’s not alright.”

“In what sense?” Steven asked. “He’s good. We need people like that.”

“Good, yeah, but not tough enough. It’s like he has some fucked up moral codex.”

“Just because you don’t have one doesn’t mean he can’t be useful.”

Agger made a face and sipped on the beer.

“It’s your call, but if you want to keep him, don’t let him too close. Don’t tell him anything beforehand, don’t entrust him with any important plans or contacts. Give him the dirty work, pay him and then he may fuck off. If it’s really what he wants, he’ll be alright with it. If he starts being nosy, we’ll know he’s onto something.”

Steven glanced over to Luis Suárez, who was just listening to them.

“What do you think, Luis?” he asked. “You agree with Agger?”

“Nope,” Luis said.

He knew well that he was one of the few people who could afford not to agree with Agger.

“Then?” Steven asked.

“I say let’s put him to the test,” Luis smirked. “Moral codex, not shooting that bitch, that all sounds like he promised someone he would behave. No offense, Agger, but if you just ask him, he doesn’t have to acknowledge he’s a traitor.”

“You have a specific thing in mind?”

Luis raised his brows and grinned.

“Maybe.”

 

***

 

Fernando raised his brows in surprise when he walked back in the living room and Sergio handed him a bag of ice wrapped in a towel.

“What did I do to deserve this?”

Sergio didn’t comment on it. Fernando took the ice and sat in an armchair.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

He put the ice above the bridge of his nose to reduce the swelling a bit.

“So what happened?” Sergio asked.

“Well, after Agger broke my nose, he basically told me I was a sissy and not a proper criminal.”

“Why is that?”

“Because I didn’t shoot that girl,” Fernando said calmly. “For Agger it translates as I’m not tough enough.”

“What did you tell him?”

“The truth.”

“WHAT?” Sergio jumped out of the sofa.

“That I didn’t kill her because I didn’t have to, and that I don’t kill people just for the hell of it.”

“Oh,” Sergio said and sat back up. “And he?”

“He told me I should stick around, because they might still need me.”

Sergio nodded thoughtfully. Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. They both jumped up.

“Expecting someone, Sergio?” Fernando asked.

“No. Nobody knows we’re here,” Sergio frowned.

He got up slowly, but Fernando stopped him.

“If it’s Agger or one of his guys, it’s better if I open the door.”

He grabbed a gun because it wouldn’t make a good impression if he, a runaway outlaw with the English police after him, opened the door to just anyone without a gun. He moved to the door, carefully unlatched it and pushed the handle.

It was definitely not Agger nor any of his men. It was someone with ridiculously curly hair.

Curly or not, Fernando put the gun to his head.

“Who the hell are you?” he barked.

“I… I'm David Luiz, Mourinho's secretary.”

Fernando glanced over to Sergio.

“He is,” Sergio confirmed. “I know him.”

“Fine,” Fernando said and put down the gun. “What are you doing here?”

“I need to talk to you,” David said and looked at Sergio. “There is something Mourinho is not telling you.”

“What do you mean?” Sergio asked, motioning for David to sit down.

“I overheard him yesterday during his meeting with Terry, Lampard and Cole. They were saying that after they get what they want, they will want you to…”

“What?”

“They will want you to kill me,” Fernando said calmly.

Sergio jumped up.

“What?”

“It's been their plan all along. Since they even talked to me. I just thought that you knew.”

“I… I didn't know… how can you think I knew about it?”

Fernando just shrugged and sat down on the sofa like he didn't care at all.

“Wait, wait…” Sergio blurted out, his mind racing. “How did you even find us?”

“That wasn't hard, I just had to look into some files. Mourinho often forgets to log out of his computer,” David said. “And well, so I took a day off and went here.”

Fernando laughed.

“Is this the one Mourinho still complains about?” he asked. “The stupid one?”

“Yeah,” Sergio said.

“You're a good actor, man, or the definitions of stupid changed radically,” Fernando noted.

 

***

 

Once the meeting between only the members standing highest in the hierarchy was over, Steven left the headquarters while the less important members arrived. Coutinho kept glancing over at Agger nervously all the time while Carroll looked sort of offended when he found out Torres wasn’t entirely dismissed yet.

“By the way, don’t tell me you don’t think it’s strange that Pepe died right after Torres turned up,” Luis said to Agger.

“I do,” Agger nodded. “I mean, if he got into a fight in a pub and some fucker shot him on a parking lot, it wouldn’t be strange, but this was a fucking execution.”

“Then why the hell do you want to keep him around?”

“Because he wasn’t the one who shot Pepe, and I want to know who it was. I want to know what the fuck Torres wants from us. And then I’ll personally shoot his brain out of his fucking freckled head.”

Coutinho sank deeper into the sofa, like he wanted to become a part of it and get out of the reach of Agger’s wrath. Luis chuckled.

“Steven looks kinda intrigued by him, though.”

“Steven can fuck him before I shoot him if he wants to,” Agger snorted. “But that guy smells like a three days old fish to me.”

“Then we should find out as soon as possible, five days old fish would be worse,” Luis smirked. “Will you call him?”

“Yeah, tomorrow,” Agger nodded. “Let’s hope Coutinho here won’t mind that he will relieve him of his duty, eh, Coutinho?”

Coutinho gave Agger a confused look and then glanced over to Seba who rolled his eyes and translated Agger’s words into Spanish. Coutinho’s face lit up.

“No, I won’t,” he said.

Agger closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Why do I have to work with this?” he sighed.

 

***

 

David Luiz was still nervously glancing at Fernando, because it was a criminal who killed six people – seven now – after all, but at the same time he was just munching on Oreos and listening to the dialogue between David and Sergio.

“I don’t get it,” Sergio said. “So Mourinho wants me to kill him?”

“Yes. Well, Abramovich wants it. Because Mourinho told them that Abramovich finally let him tell them about it, but you weren’t to know about it.”

“Why the hell not?” Sergio yelled. “I should have been the first one to know! Are there other things Mourinho and Abramovich plan to do and I have no idea about them?”

“I don’t know,” David shrugged and then grinned. “But I could find out.”


	10. Ten

Fernando woke up when the phone on the desk rang. It was a crappy old phone Sergio gave him. It looked like he bought it in some pawn shop and had it been in another situation, Fernando would be ashamed to pull such thing out in public because all kids on the bus would die of laughter if they saw it. But he was a runaway criminal and couldn’t walk around flashing the newest iPhone, that was clear. And besides, he was sure this specific phone was somehow bugged.

“Yeah?” he groaned into the phone.

“It’s Agger.”

“Hmm...” Fernando said, sitting up and glancing at the clock on the wall.

It was fucking 5:30 am.

“Get up and move your ass to Stanley Park.”

“Now?”

“If I wanted it to be next year, I wouldn’t be fucking calling you now. You have half an hour.”

Fernando frowned. Half an hour to Stanley Park, that meant he had to be out of the door in five minutes and had to jog to be there in time.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“You’ll find out there.”

The phone went deaf. Fernando got up and put on his clothes. He played with the idea of disappearing without telling Sergio, but then he dismissed it. Sergio was playing fair, even too fair for his own good, and Fernando needed him to trust him. He knocked on the door of Sergio’s bedroom and walked in.

“What the hell?” Sergio groaned when Fernando switched on the light.

“Agger’s just called. I have to be in Stanley Park in... twenty-eight minutes now.”

“What?” Sergio rubbed his eyes. “What’s the time?”

“Five thirty. I need to go there. I’m just letting you know.”

“No, wait, it’s not just letting me know! We didn’t plan anything, we...”

“Look, Sergio, I don’t have time for you to call Mourinho and discuss it with him. Besides, there’s nothing to discuss, I don’t know what it’s about at all.”

Sergio groaned.

“It smells bad to me.”

“Well, what could possibly happen, other than that Agger wants to drown me in some fountain there?” Fernando chuckled. “I’ll try to call you as soon as possible. It’s most likely going to be one of his whims.”

Agger’s whims were actually quite dangerous things, but if he wanted to calm Sergio down, he couldn’t tell him that.

“Fine. And I’ll call Mourinho in the meanwhile, if you take your phone we’ll at least know where you are.”

_Definitely bugged, then. Probably with some tracking device._

“Okay,” Fernando nodded. “I have to go.”

“Be careful,” Sergio said and it sounded awkward to him the moment the words left his mouth, and judging from Fernando's face, it sounded weird to him as well.

“Yeah, I’ll be,” Fernando said and walked out of the door.

***

Daniel Agger lit a cigarette and looked at the dirty ceiling of the room.

“Is he going there?” Kelly asked next to him.

“For his own sake I hope he is,” Agger snorted.

“How was he?” Kelly asked with a smirk, turning his head slightly to look at Agger. “In bed?”

“You’re not going to be jealous if I tell you?” Agger smirked.

“Nah, it was actually half business,” Kelly chuckled. “Not a regular thing. Besides, I don’t believe he was that good.”

“Well, he has a nice ass,” Agger said calmly, jabbing the cigarette end into the ashtray on his nightstand. “Otherwise it’s hard to tell when the other one doesn’t show much enthusiasm about having your cock in his ass. Besides, he’s not really my type.”

“Yeah, he’d be Steven’s type,” Kelly nodded.

“Let’s hope it’s not the only reason why he wants to keep him,” Agger smirked.

***

By the time Fernando arrived to Stanley Park, the gates were already open, which meant he was a bit late. He walked in and looked around as Agger didn’t specify where he should go. He didn’t have to look for long because he spotted Flanagan not far from the entrance, together with a tall man.

“Hi!” Flanagan smiled shyly and almost waved at him, like a kid who’s just seen the school team’s captain he idolizes.

“Hi.”

“This is Andy,” Flanagan pointed to the tall man. “I mean, Carroll.”

“I’m no Andy for him, nor am I for you, Flanagan,” Carroll growled.

“Where’s Agger?” Fernando asked.

“Probably back in bed,” Carroll said calmly. “He’s not doing the dirty work.”

Of course he wasn’t. Gerrard was the one to plan, Agger was the one to organize and the others were those who would go to jail.

“We should go,” Carroll said then. “By the way, do you have a phone?”

“Yeah,” Fernando frowned and fished the monster Sergio called phone out of his pocket.

“Perfect,” Carroll said, grabbed the phone and threw it into a pond with a loud splash.

“What... what the hell?” Fernando blurted out.

“Phones and explosives don’t go well together,” Carroll smirked. “Remember that.”

***

José Mourinho woke up to a sound that wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but still far from what he considered a suitable ringtone for someone in his position. He didn’t exactly wish anyone to call him during an important meeting when his ringtone was some children’s song about dinosaurs.

Luiz should prepare himself for the last day of his life.

“Mourinho!” he barked.

“It’s Ramos,” Ramos’ voice said.

“What the hell do you want so early?”

“Agger called Torres and asked him to go somewhere. I thought you’d want to track him.”

“You thought?” Mourinho yelled, jumping out of the bed. “And where the hell are you?”

“Well, I couldn’t really follow him,” Ramos said and Mourinho could practically see his dumb face.

“Damn!” Mourinho swore while he was starting his laptop. “I swear, I’ll have you fired before you land in Madrid!”

He hung up and dialed a different number.

“Cole,” sounded from the speaker.

“Mourinho. I need you to track Torres’ phone now.”

“Sure,” Cole said.

At least someone was doing what he was told without stupid questions. After a while he spoke again.

“Are you sure it’s switched on?” he asked. “I have no signal.”

“I’m not sure, I’m not in Liverpool!” Mourinho barked.

“Well, I can try to locate it even if it’s switched off, but it will take some time.”

“Fine, do it and call me.”

***

Eva Carneiro got off the triceps-focused machine in the gym and started doing lunges. It was her usual workout before lunch, just a light one. She had a more thorough one in the evening, if her work allowed it.

“Change the post,” the computer announced.

Eva got on the biceps-focused machine. She was already thinking about the lunch she would have.

“Your training program is now finished!” the computer told her in an optimistic voice.

Her training program was never finished when the computer said it was, it was finished when she thought it was. Eva got on the running belt, programmed a higher speed and put the earphones on, switching on her favorite workout music.

The music was turned off a minute later, replaced by her ringtone and the message “Mom calling”.

“Yes?” she growled.

“It’s Abramovich.”

His voice was as angry as if he knew that she had his number saved under “Mom”.

“Did you see the news now?”

“No, I’m in the gym. Why?”

“Watch it, and then come to my office. It’s urgent.”

With an annoyed sigh, Eva turned off the belt, grabbed her towel and headed to the dressing room. She was sure it was again Ramos who fucked something up.

***

José Mourinho was staring at the TV screen, completely ignoring David Luiz who was trying to ask him whether he should make him some coffee or call an ambulance. José felt like he needed the latter, but he wasn’t going to ask Luiz for it.

After all, dying from a heart-attack would be better than what Abramovich was most likely going to do to him.

When Ramos called him in the morning, he expected everything, but this exceeded all his expectations.  _An explosion in the metro station._ For fuck’s sake, Torres should have warned them before things like that, not fucking participate in them.

The phone in the next office rang and Luiz hurried to pick up, mainly because it would get him out of Mourinho's reach.

“If it’s Ramos, tell him he’s dead already!” Mourinho shouted.

“José Mourinho's office!” Luiz announced in the phone. “Yes, I will put you through immediately, Mr. Abramovich.”

José sighed.

“Mr. Abramovich?” he said.

“I’m expecting you in my office in an hour.”

“Of course,” José said.

“And don’t expect me to buy into any of your excuses this time.”

***

 

  
“I told you,” Eva Carneiro sighed. “Ramos is an idiot. He can’t keep track of his socks, leave alone someone like Torres.”

“Mourinho at least called Cole right away to track Torres’ phone. He found out it was in Stanley Park and sent his people there. They found only the phone. In a pond.”

“So what other proof do you need to believe Torres is just screwing around with us?” Eva asked and leaned over Abramovich’s desk. “Every day you let him wander around freely, you are responsible for things like this. That guy should be somewhere deep underground, chained to the wall with chains two inches long.”

“What do you suggest we do now?”

“The possibility of eliminating him right now is out of question I suppose?” Eva snorted.

“Try to think of something else.”

“I’ll go to Liverpool, check on the situation and save what Ramos fucked up.”

“Isn’t it too risky?” Abramovich asked. “I mean, if Ramos panics...”

“Ramos won’t even know I was there. Calm down.”

Abramovich sighed.

“Well, let’s give him a day. If he doesn’t really get inside Gerrard’s group now, you’ll go there and fix everything.”

“Let’s hope nothing else explodes in that one day,” Eva said with a sour face. “He’s only lucky nobody died. Apparently whoever is in charge of explosives in Gerrard’s group is an incompetent moron.”

***

Sergio was waiting in front of the house, fuming. But it was nothing compared to Fernando.

“You know what? I’m done!” Fernando barked. “If this is what you want me to do, I’m done!”

It took all the words Sergio had prepared, out of his mouth.

“You wanted me to help you, fine. But if helping you means killing more and more people, I’m out! Out! You can send me back to jail, I don’t care.”

“Well, nobody died,” Sergio said and immediately realized how stupid it sounded.

“But could have,” Fernando snapped. “If Carroll knew how an actual bomb looked like.”

“Let’s not discuss it here,” Sergio sighed. “Let’s go inside.”

Fernando didn’t care where they were discussing it, but he followed Sergio back inside.

“What happened to your phone?” Sergio asked.

“Carroll threw it into a pond,” Fernando said laconically.

“And then?”

“Well, there were Carroll and Flanagan. I was apparently taking Coutinho’s place, for whatever reason. They had it all planned, all the instructions from Agger.”

“Agger wasn’t there?”

“Nope. He wouldn’t be caught with a bomb, he’s not that dumb.”

Fernando got up and looked out of the window.

“Do you know how I felt? I couldn’t have known the bomb was shit and all it would do would be a bit bigger firework.”

“Um... no, I don’t know how you felt,” Sergio said, because he honestly didn’t.

To his surprise, it unleashed an unimaginable anger in Fernando, like finally the steam he was holding inside found a way to get out.

“No? I thought you did. I though you were imagining I was cool about that, about killing some more people, because hell, that’s just what I would do on daily bases if I had the chance, no?” he shouted at Sergio, who was too shocked to even move, leave alone to say something back.

And then Fernando closed the distance between them, leaning over so that he was practically touching Sergio’s nose with his own.

“Why the hell don’t you kill me right away?” he asked.

Sergio was desperately trying to come up with a less harmful answer than the truth, because Iker Casillas’ voice was practically  _yelling_  in his head, but he was never a good liar.

He was such a bad liar that in the next second, he  _kissed Fernando Torres_.

The imaginary Iker in his head fell silent, pulled out an imaginary gun and committed an imaginary suicide.

***

  
Roman Abramovich was just getting ready to go home, which was an event that happened every two months. Sometimes he even forgot what number he lived in.

The phone on his desk rang. It was his secretary.

“You have Mr. Eden Hazard on line two, sir.”

Abramovich frowned. Hazard was in charge of the security system of their IT center. He had actually never seen him in person, but his reputation was huge. He was some sort of a prodigy in the world of computing. Rumors were he hacked the site of the Belgian government at the age of thirteen and changed all the pictures of the politics for portraits of Homer Simpson. Anyways, if he was calling Abramovich directly, it had to be a serious problem.

“Connect me.”

There was a silent clack in the phone and then a voice with a slight accent spoke.

“Mr. Abramovich?”

“Yes.”

“I'm calling you because I suspect the security of our system has just been violated.”

“What do you mean?” Abramovich frowned.

“Rafael Benítez has just logged into the system.”

“That's normal, isn't it?” Abramovich barked. “He's still our employee.”

“Yes, but he is in Italy now, isn't he?” Hazard said.

“And?”

“Then there is no way he could have logged in from the office in London.”  


 


	11. Eleven

Three men in black walked up the stairs of the now empty building, stopping on the floor which was occupied by José Mourinho's office. They were carrying small flashlights as they wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. Switching on the lights and letting everyone know someone was in the building was highly undesired.

Eden Hazard looked around. It was an ordinary office. It shouldn’t be hard to find out who was the one logging into the system from this place.

“Kevin, check the computer here,” he told one of his partners. “I’m going to Mourinho's office.”

“Sure.”

“Jan, take the computer at the reception. That should be all.”

“Will do.”

Soon after, only the quiet sound of the keyboards was heard in the empty offices. Eden was going through Mourinho's computer, half frowning and half dying of laughter. The man was one of the most important persons in Interpol and he didn’t even password-protect his e-mail box. Then again, it looked like he struggled with technology altogether. His Internet history consisted of the online news and weather forecast and his files had names longer than an average Bible verse.

“I think I got it, Eden!” sounded from the next office.

Eden switched off Mourinho's computer and walked over to the desk on which another computer screen was illuminating the face of a fellow expert. Eden looked at the screen and scanned through the codes quickly.

“Yes, that will be it,” Eden nodded and pulled out his phone.

“Abramovich,” sounded from the phone almost immediately, suggesting that even at this hour, Abramovich was up and working.

“It’s Eden Hazard, sir,” Eden said. “Seems like De Bruyne found it. But it’s quite hilarious.”

“What’s hilarious about our security system being violated?” Abramovich growled.

“It seems like the intruder is Mourinho's secretary.”

***

  
Fernando stared at Sergio for a good while. Then he started laughing.

Sergio’s face was red. Judging by the heat he felt in his cheeks, it was most probably crimson red.

“I think this is exactly what Carneiro meant when she warned you not to let my face fool you,” Fernando says.

“I...” Sergio started.

“No, I’m sorry,” Fernando said and his face was serious. “I didn’t want to laugh.”

“Look, this...” Sergio swallowed. “It was a... momentary...”

“It’s alright,” Fernando said calmly. “If you want to forget about it, we can.”

There was nothing Sergio wanted less, but he had to pull himself together because his job and mainly his sanity were at stake here.

“Yeah,” he breathed out. “Yeah, we should forget about it.”

“Fine,” Fernando smiled, his voice light. “I already don’t remember that you did something.”

For some reason, the words almost hurt.

***

  
Radamel Falcao frowned when someone knocked on his door. He glanced at the clock on the wall.

“What?” he yelled.

The door opened and one of his men walked in.

“Steven Gerrard is calling,” he said. “Actually, Suárez, in Gerrard’s name.”

“Does he know what time it is here?” Falcao asked.

“Apparently he doesn’t give a shit.”

“I don’t give a shit about him at 6 am either, tell James to ask what he wants and then send him to hell.”

“Will do.”

The door closed again. Falcao turned to the other side and closed his eyes again.

“Does he fucking know what time it is here?” James’ voice yelled a moment later.

***

  
Eva Carneiro got off the rented car and took the big red handbag from the backseat. She felt really stupid in her blonde wig, high heels and skinny jeans, but it was the best disguise she could have. If someone saw her and reported to Ramos that a blonde woman in high heels who looked like a hooker entered the house, Ramos would most likely suspect it to be Mourinho in disguise rather than Eva.

The house was quiet as the other apartments were empty. Eva still listened carefully for any sound. Then she pulled out a spare key to the apartment where Ramos and Torres were staying and walked in.

The apartment was also empty, which she expected it to be. Ramos called Mourinho barely an hour ago that Torres went to see Agger and that he was off to the city to talk to Brendan Rodgers. Having Ramos’ phone bugged was the best thing Abramovich did in this whole case, and the idea was of course Eva’s.

Eva wrinkled her nose at the sight of the apartment. There were fast-food packagings lying everywhere, together with empty cans and old newspapers. Ramos definitely wasn’t a tidy person. Then again, his whole life lacked any organization whatsoever.

Eva quickly scanned the living room and the kitchen, then proceeded to the bedroom. That place was a tiny bit cleaner, save for clothes scattered everywhere. With a deep sigh, Eva put her handbag on the bed and got to work.

***

  
Fernando entered Agger’s place, mentally getting ready for another encounter with the Dane. What was waiting for him inside, however, exceeded his expectations. He stopped and gulped. He was standing face to face with Steven Gerrard.

He had never seen him in person, but he had heard the stories. However, the stories didn’t do him justice. He didn’t look like a dangerous criminal with a gun always ready to shoot and ten bodyguards around him. Agger did have bodyguards, although he didn’t call them that, but in fact Kelly and Škrtel were nothing else than that. Gerrard, however, was standing there calmly and Fernando could shoot him if he wanted to, only that he didn’t want to and actually couldn’t. Apart from that, Gerrard looked as normal as Fernando ever saw someone look. He could be a father of a nice little family, a lawyer, a teacher, a doctor, an engineer... Fernando could imagine him in all those roles. He couldn’t imagine him being the head of a terrorist group.

“Finally,” Gerrard said. “If Reina was still alive, I’d ask him why he thought you were all we needed. Last time wasn’t exactly convincing.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Fernando said calmly. “If I knew we were just going to make a firework in the metro station, I wouldn’t even get my ass out of the bed.”

Apparently being reminded of Carroll’s incompetence was hard to digest for Gerrard. Fernando profited from it.

“Look, you wanted me to rob a bank, I did it. You wanted me to witness Carroll’s non-existent skills concerning home-made explosives, I went along with it. But I thought you needed someone to take care of real business, at least that was what Agger told me. So you either need me or I’m out.”

“Right,” Gerrard nodded.

“So, what now?” Fernando asked when the silence became too long.

“Suck my dick.”

Fernando even found some strength to joke.

“Is it a way of speaking?”

Only that Gerrard’s face was dead serious.

“No. I want you to get on your knees and suck my dick.”

Fernando took a deep breath. He had two options, and the one he chose was the biggest risk he ever took.

“No.”

Gerrard kept looking at him for a while. Then he started laughing.

“I was already afraid that you were nothing more than a slut,” he said.

Fernando bit his tongue. If having a self-preservation instinct and not trying to oppose Agger’s initiation ceremony meant being a slut, then the standards changed rapidly while he was in Wakefield.

“Told ya.”

Fernando almost jumped up when Agger’s voice sounded from across the room. Agger was standing there with his arms folded. Next to him, a dark-haired man was eyeing him hatefully while another one was towering behind them.

Gerrard motioned to Agger’s big sofa. Fernando sat down carefully.

“Agger you already know. This is Suárez,” Gerrard pointed at the dark-haired man. “And Coates.”

Fernando knew immediately that he and Suárez would never be friends. Coates didn’t look particularly unfriendly, actually he looked like a kind person, but he obviously sided with Suárez.

“Well...” Gerrard said. “You wanted serious work, you’ll have it.”

***

  
In a mansion on the outskirts of Bogotá, two women were preparing breakfast while the rest of the house was just waking up.

Except for James, who was up since six in the morning and in a very grumpy mood.

“Another?” one of the women asked and picked up an empty cup.

“Yeah, thanks, Daniela,” he nodded and crossed off a few numbers on some list.

The smell of coffee filled the room as Daniela poured more coffee in the cup. Falcao walked in soon after.

“So? What did he want?” he asked.

“He wants the weapons. Agrees on all the conditions. But needs them quickly.”

“Whatever, we will still make profit from it.”

“Yeah, but we don’t have all he wants.”

Falcao reached for the list and scanned it quickly.

“We can get that. If he pays for it.”

“But it will be difficult.”

Falcao gave him a stern look.

“Would have been easier if your brother-in-law didn’t take off with half of our stuff while I was gone, yeah. But we’ll have to cope.  _You_  will have to cope. Because right now, you and your wife aren’t on the list of my friends.”

James got up and headed to the door.

“Where are you going?” Falcao asked.

“To Yepes. If someone out there has this stuff, it’s him.”

Falcao nodded approvingly.

“See, I could even like you. When I find your dear brother-in-law, I’ll let you pull the trigger and we can forget it all.”

“That’s a generous offer,” James said curtly. “I better go to Yepes now.”

***

  
Sergio’s mind was somewhere completely else when Brendan Rodgers was talking to him. He didn’t even mind Rodgers scolding him for all that happened.

He was screwed. He kissed a criminal. He liked it. He wanted to kiss him again. He couldn’t even think of him as of a criminal anymore.

Maybe he should call Mourinho and ask to be replaced. Mourinho insisted that they were short on people, but anyone could do this, even one of those Mourinho was convinced couldn’t do anything. Maybe he could hire Özil back and make him do Sergio’s job.

But then, they’ve already gotten so far. And if there would be someone new, they would probably have no problem going with Abramovich’s plan of killing Fernando. Fernando would be just a regular criminal not worth anything for the society.

_Fuck._

Fernando  _was_  a regular criminal and Sergio would have to kill him once Abramovich really asked him to do it. That he was having a hard time acknowledging it was too scary. He just hoped now that David Luiz was wrong and Abramovich had different plans. He made a mental note to call Luiz the next day and ask him whether he found out anything new.

He didn’t even remember how he got back to the apartment, but Fernando was already waiting there.

“How did it go?” Sergio asked, trying to sound as professional as possible.

“Depends on the point of view. I met Steven Gerrard.”

“What?” Sergio squealed.

“Yeah. And he took me in.”

“Really?” Sergio breathed out.

“Yes. And all it took was to refuse to suck Gerrard’s dick.”

The only thing Sergio could do was to blink.

***

  
David Luiz wasn’t a party animal and he rarely needed a drink. After José Mourinho decided that he needed the system in his documentation to be completely different, though, and leaving David organize it until almost 10 pm while he himself went to have dinner with Abramovich, he needed at least one glass of something strong.

He entered the bar practically opposite to Mourinho's office because he felt like he wouldn’t drag his feet any further. He ordered a glass of “whatever will make me forget” and waited.

A girl in short, bright pink dress was sitting at the other end of the bar, sipping on some cocktail, looking bored and miserable at the same time. David smiled at her sympathetically before taking his drink and almost downing it in one gulp.

“Bad day?” she asked, playing with the straw.

“Kind of.”

“Welcome to the club.”

David watched her take her drink and move to the chair next to him. He couldn't believe his eyes. She was absolutely gorgeous and he had thought such things happened only in the movies, not in real life, and certainly not to him.

“I though…” she paused and took another sip. “What if we… made each other feel better?”

David gulped. He didn’t have a girl hitting on him so obviously since high school, and that girl had way too many beers and way too little, or none, boyfriends before. This girl was a whole different class, with a gorgeous body, no braces, no glasses and a mouth he was sure could do wonders.

“By the way…” she outstretched her hand. “I'm Eva.”  


 


	12. Twelve

David woke up to the sound of his alarm clock and cursed it off for waking him up from the perfect dream in which he met a gorgeous woman at the bar and-

Something moved in the bed next to him and he froze, not quite daring to look there.

When he finally worked his nerve to glance next to him, his breath almost hitched. The girl, Eva, if he remembered clearly, was still there, apparently with nothing on under the covers as the bra dangling provocatively from the bedpost suggested.

That it wasn’t all a dream was beyond David. That she was still there and hadn’t sneaked out before dawn to avoid the awkward “we had sex but we’ll never meet again” moment was already too surreal.

David sneaked out of the bed carefully, tiptoed to the bathroom door and closed the door behind him. He looked in the mirror and tried to discipline his hair because he wouldn’t want anyone to see him in that state. Then he turned on the shower and stepped in because he couldn’t exactly turn up in Mourinho's office looking like he was run over by a sex tornado smelling heavily of patchouli.

He was just in the middle of the shower when the glass door screeched and Eva appeared, wearing exactly what an Eva would wear.

“Good morning!” she purred. “Mind to share the shower?”

* * *

  
Luis Suárez was furious. Absolutely furious.

The moment he and Seba returned from Agger’s place, he poured himself a glass of something strong and then went on a long rant about Gerrard going probably senile when he decided to trust this Torres guy enough to tell him about the gun shipment they were negotiating.

“You yourself suggested a test and he passed it,” Seba objected.

“How? When Carroll fucked up? We would have seen the true nature of that guy if the explosives actually  _exploded_ , but he could be cool with a firework even if he was Jesus Christ!”

“So what do you want to do?” Seba shrugged. “Gerrard took him in. And even Agger didn’t object too much.”

“That he’s in today doesn’t mean he can’t be out tomorrow,” Luis growled. “I’m going to find out what he’s up to.”

“How?”

“I’ll think of something,” Luis said contentedly. “And if he’s a snitch, I’ll personally deal with him. Well, unless Agger wants to do it himself. Then I will gladly watch.”

***

  
David was making coffee and some breakfast in the kitchen while Eva was still in the bathroom. David glanced nervously at the clock, but he still had enough time to go to work. Between Eva and Mourinho, he was sure he would still prefer Eva anyway.

He might never have such a woman in this apartment again.

Eva emerged from the bathroom, wearing the pink dress and a short black jumper. Her hair was pulled up in a ponytail and she again smelled of patchouli.

“Coffee?” David asked. “Or I have Aspirin...”

“Thanks, but I wasn’t drunk,” Eva chuckled.

This made things even more surreal.

“Coffee will be fine.”

David switched off the stove when his phone rang and Sergio Ramos’ number appeared on the display.

“Sergio, I...” David said, trying to maneuver the phone together with the kettle. “I’ll call you later, alright? I’m not...”

Ramos’ voice blurted something out in the phone but David interrupted him again.

“I’m not alone now, alright? I’ll call you later.”

He threw the phone on the table and sighed.

“Sorry,” he said.

Eva smiled brightly.

“You could speak calmly, I don’t mind,” she said and pretended to be occupied with her toast.

“It wasn’t important,” David said. “It was just a... friend.”

“Well, he sounded like for him it was important.”

“He tends to overreact,” David smiled.

“Well, you can always meet him later,” Eva nodded and put sugar in the coffee.

“Not exactly, he’s in Liverpool, has some job there.”

“I hope not supporting Liverpool in the league,” she made a face. “Important question, who do you support?”

David’s face lit. A football fan on top, this woman couldn’t be real.

“Chelsea, of course!” he said.

Eva’s eyes flew to the Chelsea FC oven glove above the stove and she smiled.

“Seems like we were made for each other,” she cooed.

* * *

  
“He hung up!” Sergio growled and threw the phone on the table.

“You say that like you’ve never been hung up on before.”

“He tells me he’s not alone and hangs up. Like that he has a chick there is more important than...”

“Than me? Oh, it probably is for that guy!” Fernando chuckled and stretched on the sofa. “We can have breakfast before he’s done with his girlfriend, maybe.”

Sergio glared at him. For his liking, Fernando was enjoying this a bit too much. Bringing a criminal his breakfast definitely wasn’t what Sergio signed up for when he joined the Interpol. But actually, he needed some fresh air.

“I’ll bring some,” he said.

“Well, I’ll have a shower in the meanwhile.”

Sergio thought that he really didn’t need to be informed about that, but then he just nodded and headed out of the apartment.

He dialed Iker’s number as soon as he was out. The phone rang for a while and then finally Iker picked up.

“Casillas,” he said in his professional voice.

“It’s Sergio,” Sergio said. “Iker, I...”

“You kissed that man again!” Iker exclaimed.

“How do you know?” Sergio breathed out.

“I’m a psychologist and you’re really easy to read. You wouldn’t be calling me if you didn’t fuck up, which means you fucked up the worst possible way.”

“Well, yes,” Sergio admitted. “I kissed him.”

“And he?”

“He laughed.”

“Oh.”

“What do you mean, oh? He laughed and then said we would forget it.”

“Ah, so at least he’s sane. A criminal, but sane. Unlike you.”

Sergio sighed and sat on the nearest bench. The park was empty, it was after the rain and there was fog everywhere. He was missing Madrid weather terribly.

“That’s not the only problem I have,” he said then. “And this is serious.”

“What is it, then?” Iker asked.

“I found out that Mourinho isn’t telling me everything. That he and Abramovich have a plan I’m supposed to be a part of, but they didn’t tell me about it.”

“What plan?”

Sergio took a deep breath.

“They are not planning to get Fernando go. They are planning to kill him. And I’m the one who will do it.”

Iker didn’t even comment on Sergio calling Fernando by his first name. He hummed noncommittally and was silent for a while.

“And what is the problem exactly?” he asked then.

Sergio felt like smashing him over the head for being so thick.

“I can’t kill him!”

“Why?” Iker asked calmly.

Sergio took a breath but suddenly realized that he didn’t know what to say. He shouldn’t have been even concerned. He would only be doing a thing good for the society, probably. The responsibility would be upon Abramovich.

“Because...” he said then. “I just can’t.”

“Sergio...” Iker sighed. “May I suggest something?”

“What?”

“You should immediately, I repeat –  _immediately_ , put your mind into order. Realize what you feel and what you can and cannot do. And if you cannot do this, you should inform Mourinho.”

“But how, if Mourinho doesn’t know that I know?”

“That Mourinho doesn’t know that you know is also bad, by the way.”

“Since when do you side with Mourinho?” Sergio asked exasperatedly.

“Since it’s better for your mental health,” Iker deadpanned.

* * *

  
José finished reading his post and checking the weather on the Internet. Not that he hoped for his weekend to be free, but going to work was still more pleasant when it wasn’t raining cats and dogs.

“Luiz!” José barked.

No answer. José got up and opened the door to the adjacent office.

“Luiz!”

He was met with the Brazilian’s idiotic, dreamy smile. It almost made him feel sick.

“Did anyone call?”

“You did, sir,” Luiz nodded.

José felt like grabbing Luiz’ Chelsea FC mug and smashing it over his head.

“I mean on the phone,” he said through gritted teeth. “Ramos, for example.”

“No,” Luiz shook his head, his curls flying around even wilder than usual. “But Detective Cole left you a message when you were out for lunch.”

“And why are you telling me only now? It’s five pm!”

“I forgot,” Luiz admitted. “Well, Cole asked me to tell you that he took care of the phone thing, whatever it means.”

“Ah, alright,” José nodded. “Anything else.”

“No, sir.”

“Perfect. Make me some coffee. And stop grinning like an idiot.”

* * *

  
James walked in the kitchen right in time to see his wife put down her phone a bit too quickly. He closed the kitchen door carefully and looked at her.

“Are you mad?” he hissed. “The last thing we need is Falcao finding out you know where your brother is... after we both swore to him we didn’t!”

Daniela pushed her chin up and glared at him defiantly. James sighed. If there was something worse than being stuck with an angry Radamel Falcao, it was being stuck between Radamel Falcao and his wife.

“You heard him in the morning!” he added, wanting to sound forgivingly, but accidentally sounding even more angry.

Daniela’s defiance was gone in a blink.

“You wouldn’t do it!” she whispered, grabbing his hand. “You wouldn’t kill David.”

James preferred not to answer because he didn’t know for sure what he would do if Falcao really managed to find David Ospina. He simply hoped it would never happen and that David had at least thought his plan through when he decided to screw over Radamel Falcao.

He didn’t even have time to say anything, because Falcao walked in a moment later.

“Well?” he asked.

“Yepes has the stuff. We can have it all together in about three days. Will you call Gerrard yourself or should I do it?”

“I will call him,” Falcao said. “If everything goes through, though, you will go to England.”

James nodded slowly. It’s been a long time since Falcao left the country. There was some trouble with his passport and he was just generally lazy to go around bribing officials to sort it out unless it was really necessary. He preferred not to remind the police of his existence.

“And I hope you come back,” Falcao added with a pointed look at Daniela and closed the door behind him.

* * *

  
Eva took off the pink dress and threw it in the washing machine. Then she stepped in the shower and washed off the patchouli smell. When she put on a pair of jeans and a loose tee and sprayed on some unisex perfume, she felt a lot better.

She picked up her phone and dialed Abramovich’s number. Abramovich answered the phone almost immediately.

“It’s Eva,” Eva said and switched on her laptop in the meanwhile. “I don’t know yet what is between Ramos and Luiz, but they definitely know each other.”

“Do they?” Abramovich asked.

“Yes. Ramos called Luiz this morning and it seemed like they are on good terms. Luiz told me it was a friend.”

“Are you seeing him again?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” Eva sighed. “I’ll try to get it out of him.”

“Try to hurry.”

Eva chuckled.

“Don't worry, I won't prolong it. Luiz is not really my type and he's no miracle in bed, either.”

Abramovich didn’t bat an eyelash. He knew Eva Carneiro had no sense of humor whatsoever but was capable of very sarcastic remarks about sex-related things. She without a doubt learned it during her training as a way to cope with the sexist remarks from her male colleagues.

“Fine. I want him to disappear.”

“I can assure you nobody will find a single part of him once I’m done,” Eva said and tapped quickly on the keyboard.

“Perfect.”

“Umm... boss?” Eva said while still staring at the screen.

“What?”

“I have something I need to show you.”  


 


	13. Thirteen

_The look at Sergio Ramos‘ face when he walked in the bedroom to find Fernando Torres wearing nothing but a towel around his hips was so shocked that it was almost ridiculous. That he manoeuvered around him long enough to end up accidentally on the bed was even more ridiculous. Though it didn‘t explain exactly how he ended up making out with Fernando on it a few moments later. There was no plausible explanation._

_And the way the look on his face changed from frightened into one of anguished pleasure when Fernando took his cock in his mouth explained why Fernando Torres could get whatever he wanted from whomever he wanted. He clearly posessed the skills required to make an Interpol agent forget he was not supposed to have sex with criminals. The hand Sergio lifted to push him away actually started to pull him down as soon as Fernando hollowed his cheeks a few times._

“I think I’m going to throw up,” Abramovich said.

Eva Carneiro closed the laptop calmly.

“Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting this, when I put the camera in Ramos’ bedroom,” she said, half disgusted and half on the brink of laughing hysterically. “But it does tell us something.”

“That we need to take Ramos off the case?”

“Oh no, I wouldn’t do that,” Eva shook her head. “If they are on such good terms now...”

“Please...” Abramovich groaned. “Don’t even joke about this...  _this_.”

According to the video player, the video went on for another forty minutes. Abramovich didn’t want to even imagine what filled them.

“Look... assigning someone new would ruin everything now,” Eva said like she was trying to reason with her boss. “Let them just think we know nothing about this, and once we have what we want, we decide what to do. If we have to kill Torres, anyone can do it, not necessarily Ramos.”

“Alright,” Abramovich nodded. “But we still need to know why Mourinho’s secretary logged in the system as Benítez, what is between him and Ramos and whether Mourinho knows about it or not. Whatever he knows now mustn’t get out.”

“Don’t worry, I told you I’d take care of that.”

Abramovich nodded. He didn’t like what way this all was going, he didn’t like it at all.

***

  
Agger was sitting on the sofa, pretending that he was watching the news, but actually staring at the screen almost without blinking, a cigarette in one hand and a can of beer in the other.

When Martin Kelly walked in, he didn‘t even look at him. Martin took a beer from the small fridge, the fact that he didn‘t even ask suggesting he had special privileges in Agger‘s home.

“Did Luis speak with you?” Kelly asked.

“Why?” Agger looked at him.

“Nah, he went on a rant about how he was going to prove Torres was a rat,” Kelly shrugged. “So I thought he was going to speak with you, if not with Gerrard.”

“No, he didn’t speak with me,” Agger said and switched off the TV. “He knows my opinion after all. I don’t like Torres any more than he does.”

“To me he doesn’t look like a rat,” Kelly shook his head. “He knows how this business works.”

“But doesn’t act like he’s supposed to, either,” Agger frowned.

“Well, whatever. We all have our secrets, don’t we?”

Agger looked him in the eyes sternly, like he was asking if Kelly was implying something. Kelly decided to drop it.

“What with the guns?” he asked then.

“It’s going well so far. Surprisingly well, considering it’s Falcao.”

Kelly didn’t ask for any details, because he knew he wasn’t supposed to know them. In the hierarchy, he was somewhere in the middle. Trusted enough to have a vague idea of what was going on, but not enough to belong to the small circle that knew who, what and when.

“I just hope Luis’ plan to test Torres, whatever it is, will end better than the first one,” Agger sighed.

“That failed because of Carroll, didn’t it?” Kelly smirked. “Have you never fucked up?”

Agger looked at him, this time not sternly, rather like he wasn’t sure if he should answer.

“I have,” he said then. “And it was the biggest lesson I’ve ever learned.”

***

  
Sergio knew it was ridiculous. He has been in the bathroom for an eternity now and he couldn’t exactly pretend he was scrubbing himself for two hours. He switched off the shower and stepped out.

Fernando was calmly cooking eggs in the kitchen, like nothing happened. He looked at Sergio and lifted the pan.

“Dinner?” he asked.

Sergio looked at him incredulously.

“What?” he spat out.

“That we just fucked doesn’t mean we can’t eat together, or does it?” Fernando smirked.

Sergio sat on the chair and hid his face in his hands. Fernando put the plates on the table.

“I’d say I’m sorry, but first, you didn’t look like you didn’t want it, and second, I’m not sorry,” he said. “I went without sex for more than five years, hell, I’d be mental if I was sorry!”

“This is madness,” Sergio said. “I... I can’t...”

“Look, we’re not getting married, are we?” Fernando asked and stabbed a fork in the eggs. “It was just a fuck. It  _could be_  just a fuck, if you want.”

“I work for the Interpol. You’re a...”

“Criminal, bank robber, murderer, runaway prisoner...” Fernando railed off with an amused smirk. “And I’m a normal guy on top of it all, or underneath it all, depending on how you look at it.”

“We can’t...” Sergio looked at him. “I...”

“Why do you worry about it now?” Fernando smiled. “Let’s worry about it when this is over.”

“When this is over I’m supposed to kill you!” Sergio reminded him. “Unless the plans have changed and Luiz forgot to tell me because he’s just found himself a chick.”

Fernando chuckled.

“See? Sex is more important than your mission, it seems.”

Sergio sighed exasperatedly.

“I have to go out,” he said then, got up and grabbed his jacket and his phone.

He had at least one phone call to make.

***

  
David Luiz couldn’t believe his eyes when he got a text from Eva barely an hour after she left. She didn’t quite stop texting him throughout the day, which resulted in a few Mourinho's tantrums when David’s mind was somewhere completely else than in the office, due to some of Eva’s risqué texts.

He got a bit nervous when Mourinho didn’t look like he would ever leave the office, but finally he really went home and David had at least time to buy a flower in one of the 24/7 stands.

Eva was waiting for him at the bank of river Thames, dressed more modestly this time, but still sexy in the minidress and leather jacket she threw over it.

“So... where do you want to go?” David asked after she practically sucked the life out of him with the greeting kiss.

“Um, I don’t really feel like socializing today,” Eva said. “We could just walk, and then go to your place maybe?”

David gulped when he imagined what it implied.

“B-but... aren’t you hungry?” he asked.

“We could grab some kebab on our way,” Eva smiled.

They walked down the London streets slowly, with Eva holding David around the waist like she was afraid she might lose him.

“So where do you work?” she asked.

“Actually, just opposite to the bar where we met,” David said.

“Oh, but that’s like... aren’t there some offices of the Interpol?”

“Yes,” David nodded.

“Did I find myself some secret agent, then?” Eva giggled.

“Unfortunately not,” David smiled. “I’m just a secretary with a really annoying boss. So actually quite boring.”

“I believe you’re a lot less boring than you make yourself look,” Eva cooed. “Or am I wrong?”

***

  
Luis looked at Coutinho, who was nervously blinking at him, and rolled his eyes.

“I’m not asking you to kill him, for fuck’s sake!” he said.

“Does... does Agger know about this?” Coutinho asked.

“He doesn’t need to know,” Luis smiled. “It’s nothing. We just want to be sure that we’re safe. Besides, he has quite the same opinion on this.”

Coutinho didn’t look convinced. He was more scared of Agger than he was of Gerrard, and that was quite something.

“Look, Torres kind of likes you. For whatever reason,” Luis made a face. “I just want you to stay close to him, and observe him. That’s all.”

“Okay,” Coutinho nodded.

“Things are gonna get wild soon. If he doesn’t snap now, then he’s clean,” Luis added with a contented face.

Coutinho just gulped.

***

  
Sergio dialed a number and waited until a familiar voice sounded from the speaker.

“Casillas.”

“H-hi, Iker.”

“You slept with him,” Iker stated.

“H-how do you...”

“For fuck’s sake, Sergio!” Iker yelled.

_Right._  He didn’t know. Sergio just confirmed his wild guess.

“Do you really have to fuck everything that has pulse?” Iker asked.

“I don’t know how it happened, I just...”

“Look, I could start telling you about how you need adrenaline and stuff, but your diagnose is simply  _being Sergio Ramos_... please, tell me that Mourinho doesn’t know about it.”

“Nobody knows about it, but... Iker?”

“What?”

“I don’t know if I can continue doing this.”

“Sleeping with him?” Iker asked incredulously.

“No, you idiot, I mean this case!”

“Oh,” Iker said. “Well, then you can tell Mourinho that you can’t. But that would mean either telling him you’re not okay with killing Torres and thus explaining to him how you know about it, or telling him you slept with Torres and explaining how it happened, probably.”

If Iker was really good at something, it was putting unpleasant things into words the way they sounded even more unpleasant.

“I’ll give it a thought,” Sergio growled.

Just when he hung up, Fernando's number appeared on the display. Sergio hesitated for a while before pressing the green button.

“Yes?”

“If you’re done sulking now, Agger’s just called me,” Fernando said. “Seems like something’s gonna go down soon.”

***

  
Eva tucked her legs under her body and picked up the glass with wine. Not that the night was a catastrophe; she could imagine more productive ways of spending her free time but it could be worse than listening to music and drinking wine with David Luiz, that was for sure.

Luckily for her, it wasn’t hard to get him to talk, and once he got a little tipsy and Eva’s hands got on the right places, he was spilling all his secrets like they were nothing. Eva felt grateful that he was only Mourinho's secretary and not someone important in the national security.

Soon she knew about Ramos, about the way Luiz found it  _so unfair_  not to tell him he was supposed to kill Torres, and also that Torres shouldn’t be killed at all because “he looks so  _normal_ , really”. At least Luiz seemed to be interested only in the fairness of the situation and not about any other plans the Interpol or Abramovich himself had.

“My glass is empty,” Eva giggled.

She made sure she drank slowly, so she barely finished her second while Luiz drank the rest of what they had.

“I can get you more,” he offered.

“No, I’ll do it!” Eva smiled and picked up his glass as well.

She made way to the kitchen and opened a new bottle of wine. She poured the wine in both glasses, then reached in her handbag and pulled out a tiny foil envelope. Taking two careful steps back she checked Luiz was still in the room, then poured the content of the envelope in one glass and stirred the wine until it dissolved. Then she danced back into the room and handed the glass to Luiz.

“Cheers!” she smiled.

***

  
Fernando sat in the armchair and looked at Steven Gerrard. Apart from him, there were Agger, Suárez and Coates sitting around the table. The presence of Coates was a mystery for Fernando. He seemed to be on about the same level as Kelly or Carroll, not as low as Coutinho or Flanagan, but still not entitled to be present to the meetings of the closest circle. But it looked like where Suárez went, Coates went by default, and Gerrard seemed to tolerate it.

“So, we’re expecting a huge shipment of weapons from Colombia,” Gerrard said. “We arranged a deal with Falcao.”

“What’s my role?” Fernando asked.

“Falcao will send his man. Certain James Rodríguez. You’ll do the deal with him.”

“Why me?”

Gerrard frowned like Fernando just asked a really dumb question.

“Because you speak Spanish.”

“Suárez also speaks Spanish.”

“Suárez talked to Falcao’s men last time. And he’s lucky to have survived it.”

Luis narrowed his eyes while Coates actually laughed like it was nothing more than a funny story. Truth to be told, Luis was glad he was not the one doing the deal. His ribs still hurt at the mere memory of James Rodríguez’ Adidas shoes. That kid had an angelic face but could transform into a fucking demon in just seconds.

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Good. You’ll check the stuff is alright, then you’ll give me a call and I’ll transfer the money to Falcao’s account. When he gets it, he’ll call James, who will give you the stuff.”

“That’s complicated,” Fernando noted.

“That’s the way Falcao wants it.”

Fernando decided not to object. It was Gerrard’s problem, not his, after all.

“Lucky that it’s not you doing the deal, Steven,” Luis smirked then. “If James heard you pronounce his name this way, he’d shoot you right away.”

Gerrard just smirked and looked at Fernando.

“Be ready then. I’ll get to you when it’s time.”

Fernando nodded and got up. When he was down on the street, he turned back and looked up. He couldn’t see him, but he felt Luis Suárez’ eyes watching him until he turned the corner.  


 


	14. Fourteen

Fernando smirked when Sergio walked out of the bedroom that he had locked himself in the night before.

“I know you think awful things about me, but what in my file could have possibly made you think I was a rapist?” he asked.

Sergio looked at him and sighed exasperatedly.

“Well, think of it as a precaution for your own safety,” he said. “After all, our psychologist said that being Sergio Ramos was an actual diagnose, so...”

Fernando laughed.

“So actually I should be afraid of you? That’s a whole new approach. I like it.”

“Well, I don’t like that I have to speak to Mourinho now,” Sergio growled.

“If you talk to him only about business, it should be fine. But if you want to tell him details about our relationship, I’m sure he will be delighted.”

Sergio gasped because the word ‘relationship’ in the connection with him and Fernando, but composed himself rather quickly.

“Well, I should have called him already last night, but I wanted to be sure Agger wouldn’t call you at 5 am and change the plans again.”

“Agger, to be honest, was suspiciously quiet last night,” Fernando noted. “It was Gerrard doing all the talking, with Suárez occasionally joking around and Coates laughing like the kid he is. Agger looked like he didn’t give shit about that deal.”

“Should that make us worry?” Sergio frowned.

“It’s  _us_  already?” Fernando grinned. “Well, no. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Agger tends to be quite moody, to be honest. Sometimes he’s just mildly pissed, and sometimes he’s  _really_  pissed.”

“Fine. I’ll give Mourinho a call,” Sergio sighed and pulled out his phone.

Fernando blinked in surprise.

“You’re not going outside to call the boss?” he raised his brows.

“I think you already know everything about this, don’t you?” Sergio shrugged. “More than you should. So I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“Good. Actually, when Mourinho tells you to shoot me right away, at least you’ll have me on hand.”

Sergio gave him an exasperated look and dialed the number.

* * *

  
José walked in his office and stood still. Something wasn’t right. It took him a while to realize what it was. The silence.

There was no samba playing in the adjacent office, no cheerful greeting, no sounds of the coffee machine, no pieces of sandwich crunching under his feet. José suddenly realized that there was no curly mop of hair passing in the corner in his eye as he went to his office.

He went back to make sure he wasn’t imagining things. He wasn’t. There was no sign of David Luiz’ presence. José looked at the clock on the wall and then at his own expensive watch to make sure he didn’t accidentally come to the office too early.

The sound of the terrible ringtone Luiz had set on his cell phone almost startled him. He hoped it was Luiz with a very good excuse.

No such thing. It was Ramos.

“Mourinho!” José barked. “You better have good news.”

“Yes,” Ramos said. “Torres met with Gerrard and the group yesterday. They’re expecting some huge shipment of weapons from Colombia. He’s supposed to do the deal.”

“Finally!” José growled. “I though you were just going to sit there on your asses for eternity. A shipment of weapons, you say? From?”

“Falcao, obviously,” Ramos said. “Gerrard said Falcao will send one of his men though, some James Rodríguez.”

“Learn English finally, Ramos!”

“It’s pronounced like that!” Ramos retorted. “Torres will be meeting him soon. You or Abramovich might want to find something about him before the deal goes down.”

“Fine. I’ll inform Abramovich right away,” José said and hung up. “Where the hell is that Brazilian clown when I need coffee?”

* * *

  
When Agger walked in their headquarters, Steven was just putting down his phone. He looked somewhat contented and mildly mad at the same time. That was nothing compared to how mad Agger looked, though.

“What’s up?” Steven asked. “Bad morning?”

“Yeah. I’ve already listened to Carroll whining we’re going to put him on the side track – like we could do anything else after all he’s managed to fuck up until now - and then I had an argument with Suárez who is probably more paranoid than me and you combined. He’s already acting like a chief of KGB.”

“There’s never enough carefulness,” Steven shrugged. “If he wants to lead his personal investigation, let him be, as long as it doesn’t keep him from doing useful things as well.”

“I would kick Pepe’s ass for bringing that guy in if he wasn’t already dead,” Agger huffed and plopped down on the sofa. “When will Rodríguez bring his ass here?”

“I don’t give a damn about his ass, but the guns should be here in about a week.”

Agger whistled.

“That’s fast.”

“For the money, it better be,” Steven noted.

In the next moment Suárez and Coates walked in. From the looks Agger and Suárez exchanged it was clear that the argument they had had before was a huge one.

“We’ll get straight down to the business and if someone brings up Torres, I’ll blow his brain out of the head!” he said.

* * *

  
Eva wasn’t in a hurry. She spent a good hour cleaning the room and washing the dishes in the kitchen while using her lavender rubber gloves before going to retrieve a black case that looked like a glasses case, from her handbag. She pulled out a ready-to-use syringe and threw the case on the ground. But she only managed to uncap the needle when her phone vibrated on the bed next to her. She hesitated for a moment before she picked it up.

“Eva?” Abramovich’s voice sounded from the phone.

“What?” she growled.

“Change of plans. Come to my office, I’ll explain it.”

Eva frowned.

“You mean you’re calling this off?”

“Yes. Come to my office and be quick.”

Eva threw the phone in her bag and with a sigh put the cap back on the needle and then the syringe back in the case, stuffing it in her bag as well. She looked around carefully, making sure she didn’t leave anything behind, then glanced one last time at David’s sleeping body and smirked.

“You were born on a lucky star, you idiot,” she said and closed the door behind her.

* * *

  
After their last talk, Sergio decided never to call Iker again. But he had to admit to himself that he was feeling rather lonely in the city where he knew no one, except Fernando, and he couldn’t really talk about his feelings to Fernando when they concerned Fernando... maybe he should have, but he would rather die.

So he profited from the time when he went to do some grocery shopping and dialed Iker’s number.

“Casillas.”

Sergio wondered if Iker didn’t have his number or didn’t really care what number was on the display, or if he really used his professional tone on everyone, including his mother.

“Hi, Iker.”

“I would be worried, but you already slept with him, so I can’t imagine anything more catastrophic that could happen,” Iker said laconically. “Unless you told Mourinho.”

“No, I didn’t tell him, idiot!” Sergio growled.

“Fine. You might want to be careful with him now. He’s gonna be pissed.”

“Why?”

“Because Florentino is pissed, because certain people fucked a few things up, and he went on a firing and sending-on-forced-vacation spree. Probably if this thing you’re working on fails, he’s gonna pension Mourinho off.”

This certainly didn’t cheer Sergio up.

“But anyways, are you at least working at solving your problem?”

“Um. I locked myself in the bedroom tonight.”

Hell, that sounded more stupid than he imagined.

“Very well!” Iker praised him like a mother would praise her kid who just drew a bunch of lines that made no sense.

“Then we talked in the morning. And um, it was mostly about business.”

Iker’s delight was practically dripping from the phone right in Sergio’s ear.

“That’s very good, Sergio. Keep it up.”

“I’ll try,” Sergio sighed. “But to be honest, I’d need to sit on a plane and fly back to Madrid now.”

“Oh, trust me, you don’t want to be here right now,” Iker chuckled. “I gotta run. Modrić is coming for a consultation in five minutes.”

Sergio stared at the phone in disbelief when Iker hung up. If even Modrić needed a psychologist, the situation in Madrid had to be really critical.

* * *

  
“Luiz!” Mourinho barked when David Luiz entered the office. “It’s eleven o’clock! Where the hell were you?”

“I’m sorry, boss, I overslept,” David mumbled.

Mourinho looked him over critically. Luiz indeed looked like a zombie.

“Buy an alarm clock!” he snapped.

Luiz nodded and yawned.

“Yeah. Will do.”

“Now make me some coffee,” Mourinho said. “And prepare a huge cup for yourself.”

It was probably the kindest thing Mourinho's ever said, but Luiz was too drowsy to even notice.

* * *

  
Sergio tensed when there was a knock on the door. He grabbed his gun and hid it behind his back. Then he opened the door and gasped. Roman Abramovich in person was standing behind it.

“Mr. Abramovich...” Sergio blurted out.

“Is he here?” Abramovich barked instead of a greeting.

“You mean Torres?” Sergio blinked.

“No, I mean Father Christmas!” Abramovich snapped. “Of course I mean Torres!”

“Y-yes, he’s here,” Sergio nodded.

Abramovich made way into the apartment. Sergio was just praying there wasn’t anything that would make him suspicious lying on any surface.

“Mr. Abramovich, nice to see you again!” he heard Fernando say and immediately thought he should better pray for him not to say anything that would make Abramovich suspect something wasn’t right.

“I can’t say the same,” Abramovich said. “I’m here to inform you that we decided to change our plans.”

Sergio reminded himself that he actually officially didn’t know anything about Abramovich’s plans.

“What plans?” he asked.

“To let Torres go just like that,” Abramovich said.

He was seriously going to ask him to do it. Sergio felt almost sick. He was going to tell him in front of Fernando. He acted like Fernando wasn’t even there.

“He’d be dead in hours,” Abramovich added.

Sergio frowned. Wasn’t that what Abramovich wanted?

“Thing is, we will probably arrest a part of Gerrard’s group, but not all at the same time, and definitely there will be members we don’t know of. And we are sure they would take their revenge on Torres.”

Sergio was sure about that as well.

“So we decided to change the plans,” Abramovich said.

“What do you mean?” Sergio asked.

“Witness protection program. In exchange for his testimony against them.”

Sergio looked at Fernando. Fernando looked intrigued. That sounded promising. It would be probably easier to explain to the public than why he was suddenly found dead.

“Well?” Abramovich said and for the first time acknowledged Fernando's presence.

“I’m all for it,” Fernando said.

* * *

  
The meeting with Abramovich took almost two hours. That Abramovich sacrificed so much of his precious time suggested that he was really invested in the case.

“Mr. Abramovich,” Sergio said and shook Abramovich’s hand when they walked out of the building.

“Don’t let me down, Ramos,” Abramovich said and looked at Fernando. “And you. The witness protection program is the best thing I can offer you. But I want Gerrard and his group locked up for life, and you have to provide me with enough material so I can do that. Don’t fail me.”

“I won’t,” Fernando said. “You’ll know about everything.”

Abramovich nodded and got in the car. Fernando and Sergio kept looking at it until it disappeared behind the corner. Then they went back inside.

Behind the corner of the nearest building, Philippe Coutinho slid down the wall and crouched on the sidewalk, breathing heavily.  


 


	15. Fifteen

Agger walked in and looked around. There were just Steven and Suárez sitting at the table. That even Coates was missing suggested it was a highly confidential meeting.  
  
“I suppose you’ve heard about what Coutinho found out?” Steven asked.  
  
“If you mean that Torres is a fucking snitch, I have,” Agger nodded. “The little fucker came to cry on my shoulder from delusion before going to you.”  
  
Suárez actually laughed because the image of sniffling Coutinho telling Agger about Torres’ meeting with the chief of Interpol was too vivid and too funny. Even more when he tried to imagine Agger consoling him, even though he was pretty sure it didn’t happen.  
  
“What now?” Agger asked.  
  
Steven looked like he had his plan clear and Agger felt a bit annoyed. All the time Steven acted like he trusted Torres more than the others, and finally he announced that he had suspected him all along.  
  
“We’ll drop the deal with Falcao,” Steven said.  
  
“What? But what about the weapons?”  
  
“It wouldn’t go through anyway now that Torres knows about it. And Falcao isn’t the only one we can make deals with,” Steven smirked.  
  
“But we promised him that we would,” Agger objected. “It’s all set up.”  
  
“And we will. We will go with it until the end. Only in the end there will be no deal, because Torres, who will be in charge of that deal, will betray us to the police. You can count on them appearing right when the deal will be about to be done. He’ll want them to catch Falcao’s man with the guns in his hands.”  
  
“Fine,” Agger nodded. “And who will we do the real deal with, then?”  
  
“Ochoa has the same stuff Falcao does, and he doesn’t make as much fuss about it. Plus getting stuff here from Mexico should be easier than from Colombia. Luis will take care of it. Torres mustn’t know about that.”  
  
“Yeah, sure.”  
  
He glanced over to Luis who said nothing until then.  
  
“Shit, Falcao will be so pissed!” Luis said and started laughing hysterically.  
  


***

  
José Mourinho put down his cup, trying desperately to hide the smiley face on it. He had banned David Luiz from using the Bart Simpson cup, the cup with a special container to hold cookies and make them warm, the Chelsea FC one and especially the one that had a pig’s nose at the bottom, of which José was not aware and realized it only during a meeting with Detective Cole, after which Detective Cole left with hiccups. The smiley face was the most decent cup in the office. José was determined to have someone buy a set of presentable coffee mugs, and place the current ones in the container with hazardous waste.  
  
“You can’t be serious, Mr. Abramovich,” he said.  
  
“It’s the best solution,” Abramovich shrugged. “If we make Torres disappear, give him a new identity and send him abroad, we don’t need to explain anything to the public. People are slowly forgetting about his escape. If we killed him, the media would be all over it and they’d be trying to find out what happened. And if they found out we had anything to do with it...”  
  
“You told me yourself that letting him walk around London...”  
  
“But he will not be walking around London,” Abramovich explained patiently. “He will be abroad. With a new identity, preferably with our people watching over him. And mainly, he’ll have the new identity to ensure Gerrard’s group won’t be able to find him and kill him. He will himself think twice before drawing attention to his person.”  
  
José nodded resignedly.  
  
“So my task now is...”  
  
“Right now, carry on with the plan. We need Torres’ testimony and as much evidence as we can get. To send the small fish to prison will be no big deal, but if we want to get Gerrard or Agger, we need watertight evidence.”  
  
“And the new identity?”  
  
“Once I set it up and the time is right, I’ll inform you. We’ll need Ramos to give him the papers and get him on the plane. Preferably without Torres being killed in the process,” Abramovich made a face and got up. “Thanks for the coffee. It was extraordinary.”  
  


***

  
“Still, Torres can lead them to us,” Suárez said. “I mean, Interpol, or at the very least, the Merseyside police.”  
  
“Not if we take precautions,” Steven smirked. “Rodgers and the bunch of idiots he asked for help think that they got their man within our group now, but I can pay them back.”  
  
He dialed a number on his phone and let it ring. Barely a minute later, a young man walked in and beckoned Steven.  
  
“Gentlemen, meet Jordan Henderson,” Steven said. “ _Detective_  Henderson, as Rodgers and his clowns know him.”  
  
“So this is how you knew who Torres was even before Coutinho told us,” Agger said, his voice a mixture of annoyance and amusement. “They have a double agent, you have one as well.”  
  
“Sure. Jordan informed me after the bank robbery that something wasn’t right.”  
  
“Basically, the police had an order not to rush when they’d be alarmed. An order from the Interpol. That smelled bad to me. So I went after that and found out that Rodgers basically stuck the case in his drawer, like nothing ever happened,” Henderson grinned. “Help and protect, right, that’s what the police are for, huh?”  
  
“Are you actually in charge of our case?” Agger asked.  
  
“No, Rodgers basically only communicates with the Interpol. But he trusts me.”  
  
“So what is their plan? To have Torres testify against us?” Suárez frowned. “How is he a trustworthy witness?”  
  
“He’s supposed to collect the evidence. Right now he doesn’t have much more than what you’ve told him, but you can expect him to have at least a bug during that meeting with Rodríguez.”  
  
“Of that I’m sure,” Steven nodded. “Well, he can have Rodríguez. As for us, we’ll never have our hands on those guns nor will we pay Falcao for them. So he will have no evidence, right? And the next time he tries to get some, I will make sure his dead body will be the evidence.”  
  


***

  
Sergio groaned when his phone rang. He was just in the middle of lunch consisting of Chinese takeaway. He tried desperately to ignore the fact that it was always Chinese when Fernando asked for it. The Chinese place was just the closest to their house, well, actually McDonald’s was closer, but who would eat burgers every day?  
  
“Ramos,” he said.  
  
“It’s me,” a voice whispered.  
  
“Who, me?” Sergio frowned.  
  
“David Luiz.”  
  
“Oh. What’s the matter?”  
  
“Abramovich was in Mourinho's office,” Luiz whispered urgently.  
  
“Where the hell are you?” Sergio asked.  
  
“In the bathroom,” Luiz explained.  
  
“Gosh, you can’t just go around telling me those things when they are people around! Do you think that when you stand at the urinal that’s the furthest from the door, nobody will overhear you?”  
  
“I’m in the ladies’ bathroom,” Luiz said and there was a hint of pride in his voice. “No ladies work on this floor, so...”  
  
Sergio rolled his eyes.  
  
“Well, what did Abramovich want?”  
  
“He spoke with Mou, about Torres.”  
  
“And?”  
  
“He informed Mou that he wanted Torres to get new identity. The witness protection program. Mou was furious.”  
  
“I can imagine that,” Sergio sighed. “Anything else?”  
  
“He said that once he sets everything up, he’ll inform Mou and then Mou will contact you. They’ll need you to give Torres the papers and get him on the plane.”  
  
“Fine. Thank you,” Sergio said.  
  
“For nothing, I-”  
  
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” a high-pitched woman’s voice sounded from the phone.  
  
“Um... sorry, gotta go!” Luiz mumbled and hung up.  
  
“Idiot,” Sergio said and threw the phone on the table.  
  
“Problems?” Fernando asked.  
  
“No,” Sergio grinned. “Actually, everything is perfect.”  
  


***

  
Luis plopped on the bed and groaned. Seba turned to him and grinned.  
  
“More arguments with Agger?” he asked.  
  
“Nope. Agger changed his opinions. Everyone did. Obviously I was right.”  
  
“About Torres?”  
  
“Yep. He’s a fucking snitch.”  
  
“So what now?”  
  
“Now it’s up to Steven and Agger. I hope they send him to his police friends in pieces. We have other work.”  
  
“And that is?”  
  
“We’re going to Mexico.”  
  
Seba laughed and looked at Luis.  
  
“What the hell is in Mexico?”  
  
“Rather who. Ochoa.”  
  
“That’s the one who looks like a broccoli?”  
  
“Yes,” Luis nodded.  
  
Seba whistled and jumped on the bed next to Luis.  
  
“The one who sent Van Persie’s boss the urn with Van Persie’s ashes after they tried to fuck him over?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“I’m not sure that I want to go there.”  
  
“Me neither,” Luis sighed. “Me neither.”  
  


***

  
_Fernando was walking down a long corridor. He could hear the voices of his children calling him, scared, but he couldn‘t find them. He wanted to call at his wife to go to them, but suddenly couldn‘t remember her name. He knew it was there in his mind, but whenever he tried to say it, he forgot it again. He also knew that the house he was in was their house, but he couldn‘t recognize it anymore. He didn‘t know which turn to take, how to get to his children’s rooms. So he kept opening every door he came across, finding only empty rooms. Then his wife called his name as well and there was terror in her voice and he knew that was it, they found them, they had them..._  
  
“Fernando!”  
  
Fernando's eyes snapped open and he looked at Sergio who was standing next to his bed. He swallowed hard and ran a hand through his hair. It came out wet with sweat.  
  
“Sorry, I... did I wake you up?” he mumbled.  
  
“No, I was already awake,” Sergio said, shifting the weight from one leg to another nervously. “Bad dreams?”  
  
“Yeah,” Fernando said and sat up. “I’ll need a shower.”  
  
“Wait!” Sergio blurted out, as if he’s just remembered why he actually woke Fernando up. “Agger’s just called you.”  
  
“What?” Fernando blinked. “What did you do?”  
  
“Answered it.”  
  
“WHAT?”  
  
“I’m supposed to be living with you, am I not?” Sergio shrugged. “I believe you told him I was your  _boyfriend_.”  
  
“Yeah, and?”  
  
“I picked up and said you were asleep. He told me to fucking wake you up and tell him that you should call him back like... now.”  
  
Fernando sighed and took the phone Sergio was handing him. His mind was still clouded by the nightmare that kept coming back for six years already. The last thing he needed was a chat with Agger.  
  
He dialed the number and waited until Agger picked up, which was basically immediately.  
  
“Finally,” he growled. “Get up and go to my place. Someone wants to speak with you.”  
  
Someone could only mean Gerrard.  
  
“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” Fernando said and hung up.  
  
“What?” Sergio asked.  
  
“Gerrard wants to speak with me. I could either mean that the meeting with Falcao’s guy will be soon, or that I’m in deep shit.”  
  
Sergio opened his mouth and then closed it again.  
  
“Let’s hope for the former,” Fernando said.


	16. Sixteen

“The deal’s going down in three days,” Gerrard said.

“Good,” Fernando nodded.

Only Gerrard and Agger were sitting in the room. Škrtel and Kelly were waiting outside and Coutinho, who accompanied them on the way to the headquarters, scurried away the moment the car stopped, babbling in Portuguese practically all the time and looking like he didn’t really know where he was.

Suárez was nowhere to be seen. It was maybe strange, but Fernando really appreciated the lack of snarling and dangerous questions.

“This is the number you’re going to call when you see the stuff,” Gerrard said and showed Fernando a piece of paper. “Put it in your phone. This number. Not any other.”

“Sure,” Fernando said and punched the number in his phone.

Gerrard passed the paper to Agger who set it on fire and used it to light his cigarette.

“This is the place you’re going to meet at,” Gerrard said and showed Fernando another paper.

Fernando looked at it and nodded. It was an abandoned parking lot behind some shop that has been closed for years. Usual place for such deal. Gerrard set the paper on fire again.

“Once you have the guns, you will go to Agger’s place. Not here. Understood?”

“Yes,” Fernando said. “Will I go there alone?”

“Of fucking course,” Agger groaned. “Do you need an army?”

“No,” Fernando sighed exasperatedly. “See you in three days, then.”

***

  
Sergio was pacing around the room. Fernando wasn’t answering the phone, which could mean simply that he turned the sound off because of his meeting with Gerrard, or it could mean that he was already dead.

Which shouldn’t bother Sergio as much as it bothered him.

Finally the key sounded in the lock and Fernando walked in, sporting a wide grin.

“You look like you’ve just won the lottery,” Sergio mumbled.

“I probably won the lottery called the witness protection program. Or I’m fairly close to it.”

“So it’s final?” Sergio asked. “It’s going down?”

“In three days,” Fernando nodded.

“What else did Gerrard say?”

“Not much. He was really secretive,” Fernando said.

“In what sense?”

“Well, not really. Just careful the way you have to be in this business.”

“That means?”

“Not giving names, not leaving any evidence... but this is really big. Even Suárez was missing in that meeting.”

“So it was just Gerrard?”

“And Agger.”

Sergio nodded and took his phone.

“I have to call Mourinho,” he said. “He will probably have to tell Abramovich to hurry up with all the witness protection program stuff.”

“Yes. I’ll give you the address where I’m supposed to meet Rodríguez and the phone number Gerrard gave me to call him.”

“Perfect,” Sergio nodded.

Then he realized that he was talking to Fernando like he would to his partner, when he was still working with a partner. He quickly reminded himself that this was a criminal who was doing this to save himself from serving the life sentence.

“It’s why you’re actually here, after all,” he added in a harsh tone.

The smug smile on Fernando's face told him that he failed terribly.

***

  
Agger put out his cigarette and looked at Škrtel, Kelly, Carroll, Coutinho and Flanagan.

“That’s all,” he said. “Everyone has their instructions. Any questions?”

Everyone shook their heads and got up.

“Coutinho. Sit down. We got to talk.”

Coutinho gulped and sat back down, looking at Flanagan and Carroll who almost ran through the door and Kelly and Škrtel, who walked out calmly and closed the door. Because there was no engine starting, they most likely stayed in the car outside.

“So,” Agger said. “I know it was a huge blow for you when you found out about Torres.”

“I...” Coutinho took a breath. “I though... he was so good, I though he was...”

“Of course,” Agger said with compassion and put a hand on the back of Coutinho’s neck. “Of course.”

Coutinho blinked in surprise because compassion was something Agger simply wasn’t supposed to be able to feel.

“You know, Steven talked to me about it. He’s afraid that your... behavior, let’s say... you understand that word?”

Coutinho shook his head.

“The things you do,” Agger explained patiently. “Might make Torres suspect that we already know he’s a snitch. Or that you might tell him if you take pity on him. Steven thought...”

Agger sighed deeply.

“That the easiest way would be to kill you.”

Coutinho looked at him with eyes wide open, apparently at loss of words. Agger’s lips curled up in a smile and he squeezed his neck.

“I told Steven it was unnecessary,” he said comfortingly. “A snitch like Torres would be a bad reason to kill one of our own. So Steven told me I didn’t need to do that, if I could vouch for you. If I could be sure you wouldn’t betray us.”

“I’d never betray you,” Coutinho whispered.

“Oh, never say never, boy,” Agger smirked and got up, pulling Coutinho up as well. “You promised that once, that’s true. But I’d say the situation calls for a renewal of that promise.”

Coutinho’s eyes moved quickly, first searching for any help in the empty room, then for mercy in Agger’s face, finding none.

“Please,” he whispered when Agger shoved him towards the bed. “I’ll never betray you, I promise!”

“I’ll ask you later,” Agger said. “You know how it goes. Clothes off.”

Coutinho scrambled on the bed, grabbing a pillow and hugging it tightly like it could somehow protect him. Agger almost cringed at that. If it was for him, he’d not do it at all. He, unlike Steven, trusted Coutinho enough. Maybe he would possibly make Torres suspicious unwittingly, but he wasn’t likely to betray them willingly.

He decided not to take the lesson to extremes this time.

***

  
Fernando was staring blankly at the TV playing on low in front of him. Nothing interesting was in the news. Nobody’s mentioned his name for more than a week. People were probably forgetting about his existence. It was a good thing, but he was somehow indifferent.

“I’ve been thinking...” Sergio said and looked at him.

“What?”

“You practically jumped at the offer of witness protection program.”

“It’s a chance. My last chance. What’s so strange about it?”

“It means that you’ll never see your children again.”

Fernando looked at him and smiled sadly.

“I’d never see them again with or without the witness protection program. It’s a fact I’d accepted a long time ago. My wife most probably told them I was dead. Maybe she’s living with someone. I wouldn’t want to storm in my kids’ life now. I wouldn’t want them to know their father killed seven people. I wouldn’t want them to live with it.”

Sergio opened his mouth to say something, but in that moment his phone rang. He sighed and looked at the display. Then he answered it.

“Luiz, I hope you’re not in the ladies’ bathroom again!” he said.

Fernando laughed and went to the kitchen.

“No, I’m home,” Luiz said. “I overheard Mou on the phone today, after you called him about that witness protection program thing.”

“And?” Sergio asked, suddenly feeling a bit nervous without any apparent reason.

“He was talking to some guy called... Huntelaar,” Luiz said. “Do you know him?”

“Klaas-Jan Huntelaar?” Sergio said. “Yes, I know him. But what does he have...”

“He’s in charge, apparently. I mean, Mou will give you the papers, you’ll give them to Torres, and then Huntelaar will be in charge.”

“I understand. Thanks for the info.”

“Does it piss you off?” Luiz asked suddenly, in a light tone of voice, like they were chatting while having a beer in a cozy little pub somewhere in London.

“What?”

“That... um... you know, that they’ll just say ‘thanks’ and send you back to Madrid. I mean, you spent quite a long time with that guy, and you probably got to know him, and they’ll be like ‘you’re done here, there’s a new case for you’ and...”

“Why should that piss me off?” Sergio interrupted him because he knew where this was heading and knew that Luiz was completely right – it was pissing him off. “It’s my work. It’s how it works. It’s just work.”

“Okay,” Luiz said and Sergio could imagine him pouting. “I’ll be on the watch again tomorrow. I got nothing better to do anyway.”

“What about that chick you found yourself?” Sergio teased.

“Disappeared,” Luiz mumbled. “Can’t reach her on the phone.”

“Sorry to hear that,” Sergio said.

“Well, it’s nothing new. It happens to me quite a lot,” Luiz sighed. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

***

  
“Well?” Steven asked when Agger walked in and took a beer from the fridge.

“Everyone has their instructions. There’s nothing that could possibly go wrong unless someone really fucks up.”

“And Coutinho?”

Agger’s eyes burned right into him.

“It didn’t make me happy, if I’m to be honest,” he said. “He won’t betray us. He did like Torres, but he’s loyal. Maybe a bit dumb, but loyal.”

“Good,” Steven nodded. “Henderson called me.”

“Did he?” Agger said with no apparent interest.

“Yes. Seems like Interpol will go after Rodríguez first, but they will leave arresting us up to Rodgers’ people.”

“What logic is in that?” Agger frowned.

“Since when do cops use logic?” Steven smirked. “It’s actually good for us. We’ll get rid of Torres, Rodríguez and a few of Rodgers’ men at the same time. We’ll be leading three-nil at the end of the day.”

“If the weakest point of our plan doesn’t blow up.”

“What is the weakest point of our plan?” Steven asked.

Agger sighed exasperatedly.

“Carroll.”

***

  
Sergio threw the phone on the table and went to the kitchen. Fernando just finished preparing dinner.

“Good or bad news?” he asked.

“Just... news,” Sergio said and sat down. “We know where you’re going. I mean, in the witness protection program.”

“Oh,” Fernando smiled. “Where?”

“Germany.”

Fernando blinked and looked at Sergio like he was asking him if he was serious.

“Are you sure?”

“I just spoke with Luiz. Mourinho was talking to Huntelaar. That’s our man who does this kind of stuff. In Gelsenkirchen.”

“Oh damn,” Fernando said. “I don’t even know one word in German.”

“Better start learning,” Sergio mumbled and stabbed a fork in his plate.  


 


	17. Seventeen

“So, is everything clear?” Sergio asked for the hundredth time.  
  
“I’m not as dumb as I look, Sergio,” Fernando smirked.  
  
Sergio’s attempt to hide his smile wasn’t very successful. He cleared his throat.  
  
“You’ll have a wire, so that we can hear and record everything. And your phone is bugged as well. When you call Gerrard, we’ll start the action.”  
  
Fernando nodded and grabbed the gun off the table. Sergio frowned.  
  
“Will you need that?”  
  
“I hope not,” Fernando said. “But it would be weird if I didn’t have a gun. Rodríguez will have a lot more weapons anyway, but still...”  
  
Sergio nodded and scratched his head.  
  
“Well, then we’ll get you on the plane immediately. I have your passport already.”  
  
“I’m sure Huntelaar can’t wait to see me,” Fernando made a face.  
  
“Well, it’s his job,” Sergio shrugged.  
  
Fernando looked and him and his face somehow softened.  
  
“I still wish you’d come with me instead.”  
  
Sergio swallowed hard.  
  
“Me too,” he whispered then.  
  
Fernando’s lips curled up in a smile. He took a step closer to Sergio and kissed him. Sergio tensed immediately, but then melted into the kiss. It didn’t even feel strange anymore, it felt like they knew each other all their lives and yet he didn’t know much more about Fernando than what he had read in his file. But suddenly he didn’t care about facts. He knew more about Fernando and they were things he couldn’t write in any file.  
  
Fernando pulled back and looked him in the eyes. It was the right moment to say those words, but Sergio simply didn’t dare.  
  
“Be careful,” he said instead.  
  


***

  
The place was still empty when Fernando arrived. He was on time, but he knew that the Colombians weren’t exactly punctual. He checked the gun and made sure the wire was well concealed.  
  
A big black car appeared on the road and then stopped a few steps away from Fernando. The door opened and James Rodríguez stepped out. Fernando almost laughed. He might have looked like a kid himself, but this  _was_  a fucking kid. Fernando would take him for a high school student if he met him somewhere else.  
  
James zipped up his black jacket ostentatiously, letting all the empty space around them know that he didn’t approve of the English weather.  
  
“Torres?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Fernando nodded.  
  
“Did Gerrard tell you how the deal is done?”  
  
 _Fucking kid indeed._ Rule number one, never mention names, was already broken twice. Fernando was sure that Mourinho, wherever he was sitting and listening to their conversation, was doing a celebratory dance.  
  
“He did. I’m supposed to check the stuff first.”  
  
“Yeah. I hope everything’s according to the deal. El Tigre hates it when someone tries to fuck with him. I guess your people know that already.”  
  
Fernando smirked. As if Gerrard’s group were  _his_  people. And it certainly wouldn’t be his problem if Falcao was mad at them.  
  
“No worries,” he said.  
  
“So come on,” James beckoned him as he walked over to the boot of his car.  
  
Fernando had imagined everything, but this was a fucking arsenal. He had to give credit to James for getting all that stuff from Colombia to England. If someone put him in charge of such task, he’d probably call the prison to prepare a cell for him in advance.  
  
If he was to be honest, Fernando didn’t know a lot about guns. He knew how to shoot them, but didn’t care greatly about the type, calibre or anything like that. He had to pretend that he did, though.  
  
“Alright. I’ll give Gerrard a call, then,” he said.  
  
“Go on.”  
  
Fernando pulled out the phone and dialed the number Gerrard gave him. Gerrard picked up almost immediately. Fernando knew that in the same moment, Sergio’s phone also rang somewhere, thanks to some elaborate mechanism Fernando didn’t even try to understand.  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“It’s me,” Fernando said. “The stuff is all right. You can transfer the money to Falcao.”  
  
He made sure to say it loud and clear, because it was what Mourinho wanted. Gerrard hummed and put down the phone.  
  
There was nothing more to be done. He pushed the button, now the explosions were triggering another ones automatically.  
  
James only had time to pull out a gun when three cars encircled them. Men in black uniforms poured out of the cars. Among them, Fernando could see agent Carneiro. It took him a bit by surprise. She was wearing the uniform of the armed forces and the name on her tag definitely wasn’t hers. If Carneiro was her real name after all.  
  
She definitely blended in with the other policemen, though. She wasted no time aiming her gun at James.  
  
“Throw the gun away! Throw it away! On your knees!” she yelled.  
  
Sergio appeared next, once James threw his gun to the ground and sank to his knees. Fernando wished Sergio didn’t take him under his protective wings so soon, so that it wouldn’t be so clear to James that he was the Judas, but he told himself that it didn’t matter after all. In a couple hours, he would be out of England, while James would take his place in Wakefield for quite a few years. Given they would decide not to hand him over to the Colombian police. He prayed for them not to. As terrible as Wakefield was, he was sure it was still way better than Colombian prisons.  
  
“You’re dead, man!” James snarled once he understood Fernando was nothing more than a decoy.  
  
“Up!” agent Carneiro barked.  
  
Fernando felt almost sorry for him, almost guilty for leaving him in the hands of agent Carneiro. He wouldn’t wish an encounter with her on his worst enemy, and James wasn’t even his worst enemy. He was just really unlucky to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  
  
“Let’s go,” Sergio mumbled. “We need to get you on the plane now.”  
  


***

  
Guillermo Ochoa was wrapping a curl of his hair around his finger as he was listening to Luis Suárez attentively. Behind him, two of his bodyguards were standing with their hands ready to pull out the guns. Another two were waiting at the door.  
  
“So you fucked over Falcao to do a deal with me?” he asked. “Why?”  
  
“Falcao’s conditions were just over the top,” Luis explained.  
  
“You’re implying I am the second option,” Ochoa said. “I don’t like that.”  
  
Luis cursed in his mind and glanced a bit nervously to the bodyguards who seemed to be determining whether Ochoa didn’t like it enough for them to shoot Luis right away. Ochoa made a lazy gesture and the bodyguards relaxed again, still glaring at Luis disapprovingly.  
  
“However, I can give you a bit of my time and listen to your offer.”  
  
Luis wiped his forehead despite the fans in the corners of the room running on full, and leaned back in his chair. This was going to be a long afternoon.  
  


***

  
Eva Carneiro headed to the police van that was waiting behind the other cars. Another officer was standing next to it.  
  
“There’s just you?” he asked, eyes flickering nervously to James.  
  
“You think we need an army for a little fucker like this one?” she growled and shoved James inside the van. “It’s not Falcao himself, for fuck’s sake! Better hurry up, the boss won’t wait for us forever!”  
  
Eva sat on the bench in the back part of the van, pushed a strand of her hair back behind her ear and elbowed James in the ribs for good measure when she got the impression he was staring at her too much.  
  
“Call the boss and tell him that we’re on our way,” she said.  
  
The other officer nodded, closed the back door of the van and sat behind the wheel.  
  
“Won’t you read me my rights?” James asked.  
  
“You have the right to remain silent and I highly recommend you profit from it,” Eva growled. “In other words, fucking shut up.”  
  


***

  
In almost the same moment, another group of cars full of policemen headed to Agger’s place. The instructions said they would find at least Agger there, but most likely there would be more members of the gang, ready to help with the guns.  
  
Rodgers thus sent three cars, just to make sure his men wouldn’t find themselves outnumbered.  
  
When they entered the building, though, it was clear that it wouldn’t be the case. The warehouse was empty. No sight of Agger nor of anyone else.  
  
The commanding officer still ordered to search the place. It was fairly big but also almost empty. It didn’t take much time to search it through.  
  
“There’s nobody here!” one of the policemen shouted.  
  
He was and wasn’t right. The warehouse was indeed empty. But on the roof of the building facing it, Andy Carroll contentedly put on ear-protectors and pushed the button that set off the explosives hidden under the floors of Agger’s place.  
  


***

  
Sergio and Fernando walked out of the building. They weren’t feeling sorry to leave it behind. It wasn’t home to any of them. Sergio had his home in Madrid, while Fernando had no home anymore.  
  
Suddenly, Sergio stopped and froze.  
  
There was a man standing outside, leaning casually over a black sedan. When he saw them, he threw a cigarette on the ground and folded his arms.  
  
“Do I really have to clean your mess all the time, Ramos?” he asked.  
  
“Who's that, Sergio?” Fernando asked.  
  
But Sergio looked like he couldn't speak at all. He was all pale, just staring at the guy.  
  
“Sergio?” Fernando prompted him.   
  
“Special agent Luka Modrić,” Sergio whispered.


	18. Eighteen

“I’m supposed to take him to the airport.”  
  
“I know,” Modrić rolled his eyes. “I’ll take care of it. You are required to report to Mourinho's office immediately.”  
  
“But...”  
  
“Immediately.”  
  
Sergio gulped when Modrić approached them and looked at Fernando.  
  
“You have the passport? Did you give him the passport, Ramos?” he asked.  
  
“I have it,” Fernando replied, glancing over at Sergio who seemed to be still in shock.  
  
He was never really afraid of Fernando and there he was now, almost trembling in front of a guy who looked like a bit bigger rat. Fernando never understood the twisted logic of police hierarchy.  
  
“Well, then let’s go,” Modrić growled. “The plane won’t wait there forever.”  
  
He opened the front passenger door and tapped his foot impatiently before Fernando got in. He turned to Sergio again.  
  
“Mourinho’s waiting for you.”  
  
Sergio nodded on autopilot. Mourinho was probably going to send him back to Madrid. Or to fire him, because he generally didn’t like him and now Sergio probably gave him the reason he needed to make the decision to fire him justified.  
  


***

  
“What did you say that just happened?” Brendan Rodgers yelled at one of his men.  
  
“It exploded, sir,” the man replied, apparently still in shock.  
  
“What exploded?”  
  
“The building, sir. When we were searching it. I went to the car for a flashlight and it exploded when I was outside.”  
  
“It exploded just like that, Baines?” Rodgers asked in disbelief. “With all the men inside?”  
  
“Yes, sir,” Baines nodded. “It looked like there were explosives all over the place, it just... there’s just nothing left. Either it had a time switch, or someone...”  
  
“Or someone?”  
  
“Or someone was watching us. But they had to know we’d go there.”  
  
“Nonsense!” Rodgers barked, banging his fist into the table. “How would they know it? Unless someone told them? And who...”  
  
He stopped mid-sentence, motioned for Baines to go away, and leaned over the table.  
  
“Torres,” he whispered to himself.  
  
Unknowingly to him, Detective Henderson behind him breathed a sigh of relief.  
  


***

  
“I hope you keep your word, Eva,” James said after a while of the ride.  
  
Eva didn’t spare him a glance.  
  
“Don’t worry. I always do.”  
  
With a smug smile and badly attempted puppy eyes, he lifted his cuffed hands to her. Eva continued staring calmly into space.  
  
“Patience.”  
  
James rolled his eyes. The corners of Eva’s mouth twitched.  
  
“Don’t like them, do you?”  
  
“I’m not really submissive, to be honest.”  
  
“I couldn’t tell.”  
  
With the van slowing down, she reached for the keys and unlocked the handcuffs. Then she handed him her gun and stood up.  
  
“You know what to do. No witnesses.”  
  
“Sure. I’ll try not to hurt your pretty face too much.”  
  
“You’re the right one to talk about pretty faces,” she snapped. “Come on.”  
  
Squeezing her eyes shut, she braced herself as his fist flew to her face.  
  


***

  
Sergio was sitting in the room in front of Mourinho’s office. Mourinho left him there waiting for almost half an hour already and Sergio’s patience was wearing thin. At least he could watch the news on the TV planted on the wall. Suddenly, a picture of James Rodríguez appeared behind the reporter.  
  
“Now we’re back with some breaking news. The British police has just informed the public that a dangerous Colombian criminal escaped during a transport following his arrest, after he seriously hurt a police officer and killed the driver of the transport. The man is armed and dangerous. The police advises citizens not to approach him and call 112 immediately, should they have any information concerning this person.”  
  
Sergio looked at the screen in shock. The chief of the armed forces was just speaking to the crowd of journalists in front of some building.  
  
“With deep regrets I have to say that the fault was in the organization of the action. It shouldn’t have happened. I will investigate who let only two officers escort such a dangerous man, and the person will have to deal with the consequences. I would like to express my deep condolences to the family of the deceased officer. The other officer is currently in the hospital, I was informed that her condition was improving.”  
  
Sergio shook his head. Carneiro was mad enough to think she could deal with Rodríguez on her own, but something just didn’t seem right. That she would let him beat her up, steal her gun, shoot the driver and get away, that just sounded too easy.  
  
Then it suddenly made sense.  
  
She wanted it to be easy.  
  
 _Fuck._  
  
Sergio jumped up and plunged his hands in his hair.  _Fuck, fuck, fuck._  
  
It was Carneiro’s plan all along. She and Rodríguez played a nice little play and everyone bought into it, including him.  
  
He started running to the elevator just as Mourinho opened the door to finally invite him in.  
  
“Ramos!” Mourinho roared. “Ramos, where are you going?”  
  
Sergio didn’t stop, opting for stairs as the elevator was currently in the top floor.  
  
“RAMOS!”  
  
“Fuck you!” Sergio yelled back and started jumping down the stairs.  
  
He was almost sorry that he couldn’t see Mourinho's shocked face after that.  
  


***

  
Roman Abramovich walked in the hospital room and closed the door behind him carefully. Eva Carneiro glanced over to the door and her expression quickly changed from helpless to contented. She sat up and looked at her boss.  
  
“How are you feeling?” Abramovich asked, throwing a bouquet of flowers on the nightstand.  
  
“I’m fine. I’ll keep this game up for some time, but I just have a few bruises. Officially I have a severe concussion and broken ribs, though, so don’t expect me to run around anytime soon.”  
  
“Why are we doing it this way?” Abramovich asked. “The original plan was much easier.”  
  
“I saw Ramos, boss. He wouldn’t do it. And it could be suspicious. If Torres gets shot by a regular thug like himself, people will be cool about it. It leaves us out completely.”  
  
“But with his testimony we’d have Gerrard’s group locked up immediately.”  
  
“The records will be enough. And Torres’ corpse will be actually a better evidence than his story.”  
  
Abramovich nodded and then scratched his head.  
  
“What about Rodríguez?” he asked.  
  
“He doesn’t matter,” Eva waved her hand. “We’re not after Falcao and his minions. We’re after Gerrard.”  
  
Abramovich frowned. Eva smiled sweetly.  
  
“Besides, that lad could be useful in the future. I wouldn’t get rid of him just yet.”  
  
“Fine. There are journalists all over the hospital, just so that you know.”  
  
“Okay. I’ll put on the hurt face.”  
  
Abramovich smirked. When he opened the door, he was almost hit in the face by a couple of cameras as the journalists outside were trying to get any glimpse of the room.  
  
“Get well soon, Officer Cooper,” he said a bit unnecessarily loudly and walked out.  
  


***

  
Fernando turned back when the brakes screeched behind him and then Modrić’s car disappeared in a cloud of dust.  
  
There was an old hangar standing in the middle of nowhere indeed, but that Modrić would just kick him out and disappear was odd. He made a few steps towards the hangar, despite his instincts telling him to  _get the fuck out of there_.  
  
In the next moment, James Rodríguez walked out of the hangar.  
  
“Agent Carneiro sends her greetings,” he said and released the safety on his gun. “Do you want to die like a man or will you try to run?”


	19. Nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: character death.

Luis Suárez wasn’t easily scared, but now sweat was literally dripping down his forehead. He had enough experience to know that if someone of this sort of people was smiling, it was bad. Really bad.  
  
And Guillermo Ochoa was smiling very sweetly at him.  
  
“So you are offering me a deal,” he said. “After what you’ve done to Falcao. That just makes me totally jump on it... not.”  
  
“The Falcao thing was more complicated,” Luis said, hoping it wouldn’t be his last words. “Actually, first we were doing the deal with Tévez...”  
  
“Even better!” Ochoa hissed. “You do deals with everyone, and you fuck over everyone. I’m not interested in being the next one in line. And this business will be better off without people like you.”  
  
That was already a message clear enough for his bodyguards to pull out the guns. Luis raised his hands.  
  
“Wait, wait, I’m just the messenger, it’s not even my idea!”  
  
“Unfortunately, the role of the messenger is usually very ungrateful,” Ochoa nodded sympathetically. “Messengers deliver messages. You’ll deliver mine.”  
  
He reached in the drawer of his table, pulled out a bullet and showed it to Luis.  
  
“My message is this, and you’ll deliver it in your head.”  
  
Luis gulped. This was more than bad, this was  _the fucking end_. Ochoa got up and loaded his gun. Two of his bodyguards pulled Luis up and dragged him outside while Ochoa looked like he was on a morning walk.  
  
Luis suddenly found it funny that he‘d always thought he‘d die fairly young, with this job he had to count with it, but he‘d always imagined his death quite epic and honorable. Definitely not on his knees in front of a shabby looking house in the middle of a desert, by the hand of a guy whose head looked like a giant cauliflower.  
  
“I’ll take care of it myself,” Ochoa said in a lazy voice. “Go get the things ready for the funeral.”  
  
 _How thoughtful of him. He’ll even dig me a nice little grave in his backyard._  
  
The bodyguards disappeared back in the building. The unmistakeable click of the gun sounded somewhere next to Luis’ left ear. He tried to think of some prayer, but suddenly couldn’t remember any.  
  
There was a shot and Luis found himself face down on the ground. Well, if this was death, it wasn’t so bad.  
  
 _No, it doesn’t feel like death._  Luis scrambled on all four and tried to find the reason why he wasn’t dead.  
  
The reason was right behind him. It was Guillermo Ochoa’s dead body.  
  


***

  
“So it was all a game,” Fernando stated, looking at James.  
  
James didn’t look like a kid anymore, he didn’t look scared or unsure. His hands weren’t shaking.  
  
“Of course it was a game. You played and I played. Someone had to lose.”  
  
“You were just a pawn in the game Carneiro played,” Fernando corrected him. “What did she promise you? Or do you owe her anything?”  
  
“I owe her a lot and she promised me enough for me to do this,” James said. “It’s not personal, even though you did want to betray me.”  
  
“That wasn’t personal either,” Fernando said. “They made me do it. They promised me things as well. But they didn’t keep the promise, obviously, and I’m not sure Carneiro will keep hers in your case.”  
  
“I have to risk it.”  
  
“You have kids, don’t you?” Fernando asked.  
  
James didn’t reply, but the way he gritted his teeth was enough for Fernando to know that he guessed right. It also told him that he had no chance, because the boy would do anything to protect his family. Just like Fernando would do anything to protect his.  
  
James cleared his throat and took a tiny step back, not lowering the gun but giving Fernando a bit more personal space.  
  
“I’ll wait, if you want to say your prayers or something,” he said.  
  
Fernando thought that James was probably the most righteous criminal he’s ever met. Then he got on his knees and started praying.  
  


***

  
Sergio drove his car at a mad speed through the streets. He didn’t know where he was going, where he should go. Modrić could have gone anywhere.  
  
 _Shit._  He shouldn’t have acted so fast. He could have bursted into Mourinho's office and force him to tell him where Modrić went. Probably at gunpoint. Maybe at gunpoint Mourinho would tell him. Well, maybe not. Maybe he’d turn the gun and let Sergio shoot himself in the face.  
  
The thought that Modrić probably had a GPS in his car crossed his mind, and he considered calling the tech guys in Madrid and persuading them to track Modrić for him, but first, he could imagine what Marcelo and Pepe would tell him, and second, he couldn’t be sure that Modrić didn’t change the car or something.  
  
Then he dialed a number.  
  
“José Mourinho's...”  
  
“Cut it, Luiz!” Sergio growled. “Is Mou anywhere near?”  
  
“Nope, he’s not. He’s having a meeting.”  
  
“Good. Now listen to me, this is important. Modrić said he’d take Fernando to the airport, but I don’t think he went there. I think he’s a part of a plan to get rid of him. Don’t you know where he could be now?”  
  
“Modrić? I know very well where he is now,” Luiz said.  
  
A sparkle of hope lit up in Sergio’s heart.  
  
“Really?”  
  
“Yes,” Luiz said. “He’s in Mourinho's office.”  
  


***

  
José was staring at Abramovich and Modrić, feeling completely dumbfounded.  
  
“Escaped?” he asked in disbelief. “Torres  _escaped_?”  
  
Modrić nodded regretfully.  
  
“What are you, a regular policeman? You’re a special agent! One of the best! How could this have happened?” José yelled.  
  
“I don’t know, sir. Personal burn-out?” Modrić suggested.  
  
“Are you fucking kidding me?”  
  
“Calm down, Mr. Mourinho,” Abramovich said. “It could have happened to anyone.”  
  
José looked at him like he couldn’t believe his ears. Since when were such fucked up actions tolerated?  
  
“Florentino will hear about this!” José yelled. “You’re suspended! If I can’t suspend you, I’ll have you suspended by someone who can suspend you! Now get out!”  
  
Modrić just nodded and walked out of the office. José turned to Abramovich.  
  
“Have they launched a hunt yet?” he asked.  
  
“That’s your job!” Abramovich objected. “You better get to work. We have a Colombian criminal and a serial killer on the run here. And a bunch of Merseyside policemen in pieces.”  
  
He walked out, leaving José feeling like it was his first day at work.  
  


***

  
A car stopped in front of Luis when he was still on all four, probably in a state of shock. He got in the car on pure instincts. Only when he was inside, he realized it was _his_  car, and that it was Seba driving it, and in that moment he understood everything.  
  
“You’ve just... you’ve just shot Guillermo Ochoa!” Luis blurted out.  
  
“Could you please not say it?” Seba said, still shaking.  
  
“Do you realize what that means?”  
  
“Yes. That we’re outcasts. Forever,” Seba said. “And there’s not a hole deep enough for us to hide in.”  
  


***

  
Sergio exceeded the speed limit by at least 100 kph and caused a minor car crash at the crossroads. David Luiz did everything he could have done, even ran to Modrić’s car and checked the GPS for the last location recorded on it.  
  
Sergio had no guarantee that it was the right place, but it seemed to be an abandoned airport approximately in the middle of the Liverpool – London way. It sounded reasonable enough to try his luck there.  
  
Only that luck was something he simply ran out of that day. He cursed when he saw the police barriers on the road. For a moment he thought about driving past them. Then he also thought that they were there because of him. Mourinho surely was capable of it. But then he stopped and rolled down the window.  
  
“Sir, you can’t take this road,” the policeman told him.  
  
Sergio gave him his most authoritative stare and voice.  
  
“Look, I’m special agent Ramos and...”  
  
The policeman didn’t look impressed.  
  
“And I’m Constable Lambert and I’m telling you that you can’t take this road because there has been an accident. You have to go back and take the M40.”  
  
Sergio groaned and turned his car. He kept cursing the whole ride. This cost him ten precious minutes.  
  
And when he arrived to the airport, he knew that he was these ten minutes late.


	20. Twenty

James’ phone rang. He leaned over the car and answered it.  
  
“Evita!” he cooed.  
  
“You use that diminutive on me once more, James, and I’ll blow your head off.”  
  
James smiled. Conversations with Eva Carneiro were highly entertaining if you had just the right lack of self-preservation instinct.  
  
“I see you’re feeling better.”  
  
“I will feel better when you tell me you did everything you were supposed to do.”  
  
James sighed and looked around the empty parking lot.  
  
“I might not look like it, but I’m not new in this.”  
  
“Did you take the passport as well?” Eva asked.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Fine. Wouldn’t want him found with a fake, Interpol approved passport.”  
  
“Talking about passports,” James chuckled. “I hope mine has all sorted out.”  
  
“Of course. Tomorrow you’ll be in Colombia. If not, I’ll send you there in a coffin.”  
  
“Sure. I don’t like your weather anyway.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“Um... Eva?” he asked, looking at the horizon.  
  
“What?”  
  
“I think your plan wasn’t as secret as you thought. There’s a car coming. What do I do?”  
  
“Fuck, that will be Ramos!” Eva cursed. “Get out of there.”  
  
“I can get rid of him as well.”  
  
“No, get the fuck out!”  
  
James jumped in his car and drove it at a mad speed. He heard the brakes of the other car screech and a few shots sounded in the distance behind him, but they were too wide to even hit his car. He sighed and slowed down. Working for Eva Carneiro was dangerous and wrong in many aspects, but he wasn’t looking forward to coming back to working under Falcao. Not in the slightest.  
  


* * *

  
Iker was just enjoying his twenty-minutes lunch break when his phone rang. He groaned, shoved a too-big salad leaf in his mouth and answered the phone.  
  
“Casillas.”  
  
On the other end of the line, Sergio Ramos was probably going through a mental breakdown, a fit of hysterics and a great amount of fury at the same time.  
  
“They did it, Iker!” he sobbed and not even giving Iker enough time to swallow the damn salad, started yelling. “The bitch, that Abramovich’s secret agent, she... of course they weren’t going to let him off, ever, I was so stupid, Iker, they’re bastards, everyone! She fucking had him murdered!”  
  
“Sergio!” Iker managed, tiptoed to the door and looking out of his office, closed it carefully and locked it. “Calm down, please, I don’t understand what you mean.”  
  
“Fernando!” Sergio practically wailed in the phone.  
  
“As in... Torres?”  
  
“Yes! Abramovich promised him witness protection program. He even set it up, or he said he did, in Germany. He let him almost make the deal with Falcao’s man, but that bitch Carneiro... she was... I don’t even know where she knew that Colombian bastard from, nor how they became allies, but she let him escape and then Modrić...”  
  
“Hold on,” Iker said. “Modrić is in England?”  
  
“The hell he is!” Sergio shouted. “He’s probably having coffee with Mourinho as we speak!”  
  
“Interesting. I was told he went on holiday to Bahamas because he had a personal burn-out syndrome,” Iker said and scratched his head.  
  
“Screw Modrić, that bastard is on it with them! He practically delivered Fernando to Rodríguez and Carneiro had him murdered by that fucker! I’m starting to believe this all was not about Gerrard’s group at all, they just wanted to get rid of Fernando for good!”  
  
“Stop jumping into conclusions, Sergio!” Iker said. “I know that you’re mad right now, but listen to me. You have to put yourself together. If you go on like this, you’ll be dead as well, and very soon.”  
  
Sergio didn’t say anything for a long time.  
  
“What do you want me to do?” he asked then. “To act like nothing ever happened?”  
  
“Exactly,” Iker said. “Go to Mourinho, wait for his orders, and do what he says. At least until you get back from England. You’re on their playground there, Sergio, you can’t win, whatever you do.”  
  
“I’ve already lost everything anyway,” Sergio mumbled and hung up.  
  


***

  
“What are you doing?” Luis asked when Seba pulled out his phone.  
  
“Calling Agger.”  
  
“Are you mad? He’ll kill us over the phone!” Luis screamed.  
  
“Agger won’t,” Seba shook his head. “I’m not calling Steven for a reason, but Agger knows what it means to fuck up, of that I’m sure.”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Why the hell do you think he ended up in England, working under Steven? He could have his own empire in Denmark if he wanted to. He had to get out of there because he fucked up once. Kelly told me that and who knows Agger better than Kelly?”  
  
Luis’ brain was still not working properly, so he just nodded dumbly because his mind was still stuck on the idea of Agger and Kelly in a... well,  _relationship_ probably wasn’t the right word. Seba dialed the number and waited until Agger picked up.  
  
“What’s up?” he growled.  
  
“It blew off,” Seba said without further ado. “Ochoa wasn’t keen on doing the deal with us and he wanted to shoot Luis. I shot him.”  
  
“You shot Ochoa?” Agger asked in a completely flat voice, like he only wanted to assure himself that he was getting the facts right.  
  
“Yes. I... I know it was the worst thing I could do, but...” Seba bit his lip. “What do we do now?”  
  
“Find some hole and hide in there,” Agger said. “It’s not the only thing that blew off.”  
  
“How come?” Seba asked.  
  
“Torres is dead. Murdered by Rodríguez. Our dear Rodríguez who works for Falcao, but apparently also works for the Interpol. So it doesn’t matter that Torres was a snitch because Rodríguez knows as much as he did. Plus, somehow Rodgers’ dogs sniffed out Sterling somewhere. Henderson said he’d try to cover up as much as he can, but I don’t believe that bastard even his name.”  
  
“Holy shit,” Seba said and looked at Luis who was just staring at him with mouth open. “So what now?”  
  
“Steven decided we needed to lay low now. Actually, he said we needed to officially split and then regroup. So you’ll have plenty of time to lay low as well. At least while Ochoa’s body still stinks.”  
  
“You mean that you’re off as well?”  
  
“Man, I’m on my way to Denmark as we speak, there’s nothing to wait for,” Agger sighed. “Good luck.”  
  
Seba just stared at the phone. Then he turned to Luis.  
  
“Do you think this is the Apocalypse the Bible was talking about?” he asked.  
  


***

  
As a special agent, Sergio had seen many dead people, but always in the moments after they were shot, by him or one of his colleagues. Never like this, on the cold metal table, in the blueish light of the empty morgue.  
  
Fernando looked almost peaceful and in the strange light it sometimes seemed to Sergio that he was smiling. When he thought about it, it would be something Fernando would do, with his attitude and all.  
  
The pathologist had informed Sergio, who pretended professional interest, of what he already knew. There was one bullet to the back of Fernando's head, clean shot, execution style. In this, Rodríguez was a professional.  
  
Sergio lifted his hand, but then let it fall back to his side, suddenly afraid to touch the body.  
  
“I’ll get you justice,” he whispered. “I promise. It’s the least I can do, but I won’t let them get away with it.”  
  
He stepped away from the table and slowly walked to the door, looking over his shoulder one last time before walking down the empty, narrow corridors and out in the London rain.


	21. Twenty-one

**2 months later**  
  
Brendan Rodgers wasn’t that much into parties, and the Christmas party of his department was the worst event of the whole year. He still groaned in annoyance when his phone rang just when he was getting a bit of fresh air outside the bar.  
  
“Rodgers,” he said.  
  
“It’s Henderson, sir,” sounded from the phone. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I need you to come to the evidence department. It’s urgent.”  
  
“Now?” Rodgers frowned.  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Rodgers sighed. The party was boring anyway.  
  
“Fine, I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”  
  
He got in his car, hoping that the beer he had had already gotten out of his system, or rather hoping for no police controls on the road. He was the head of the Merseyside police, but it would still make a nice little scandal if they caught him.  
  
He was lucky. The roads were empty and he arrived even a couple minutes sooner. Henderson was already waiting on the parking lot.  
  
“What was so important, Henderson?” Brendan asked.  
  
Henderson looked miserable.  
  
“I’m really sorry, sir, I wouldn’t bother you so late, but I’m afraid that I made a mistake while cataloging the evidence for my latest case.”  
  
“The Sterling one?” Rodgers frowned.  
  
“Yes. I think I put something under the wrong number and... I thought better correct it before it creates more mess.”  
  
Rodgers sighed deeply but walked over to the door and passed his card through the reader.  
  
“How can you mess such thing up is beyond me, you...”  
  
He didn’t get any further because in that very moment, Jordan Henderson shot him in the back twice.  
  


***

  
“Sergio, please!” Iker whined. “You can’t go against the whole Interpol alone. Leave alone because of a dead criminal.”  
  
He was already on the brink of calling one of the fellow psychologists to take him as a patient. He was as successful in talking some sense into Sergio as he would be in talking it into a bag of sand. He honestly thought he would be more successful with the bag.  
  
“They couldn’t have made it perfect!” Sergio mumbled frantically. “There has to be something I can get them with!”  
  
“Do you even listen to yourself?” Iker asked. “It’s  _Abramovich_  you want to sue, or whatever it is you want to do! You’ll disappear before you even see the judge, if any judge will be willing to listen to you because of a case of one criminal shot by another criminal.”  
  
“Rodríguez!” Sergio yelled and jumped up.  
  
“What?”  
  
“Rodríguez! That’s the mistake they made! They left him alive! I can talk to him, I can make him testify, tell everyone what Abramovich’s plan was!”  
  
“And he will be all happy to do it, to go to jail because he will confess to murder. Sergio, sit down, let’s talk about the medication I suggested earlier.”  
  
But Sergio was already out of the door. Iker sighed exasperatedly. A moment later, Isco stuck his head through the door and looked at Iker sheepishly.  
  
“What happened to Ramos? He ran out of here like his pants were on fire!” he asked.  
  
Iker just waved his hand.  
  
“Does that mean I can have ten minutes extra?” Isco asked hopefully.  
  
“Whatever,” Iker sighed.  
  


***

  
Eva Carneiro was flipping through the pages of some boring magazine when her phone rung. She hoped it wasn’t David Luiz who from time to time still tried to call her number, the number she used for all her disguises. She picked up and put the phone on loud so that she could continue reading. It wasn’t Luiz. It was a very distressed James Rodríguez.  
  
“You have to help me, Eva!”  
  
Eva snorted and turned another page of the magazine.  
  
“I’m not Amnesty International, if you have the Colombian police after you...”  
  
“No, it’s worse! I have fucking Radamel Falcao after me!”  
  
“That’s even less my problem than the Colombian police.”  
  
“I’m serious, Eva!” he snapped.  
  
“Right,” Eva said and closed the magazine, taking the phone and putting it back on normal regime. “Why should it interest me?”  
  
“You should know that certain Sergio Ramos visited me in Bogotá.”  
  
Eva sighed. Bargaining was one thing. Bargaining with desperate people was boring as hell.  
  
“That I know. What else is new?”  
  
“You also know what he wanted from me?”  
  
“He wanted you to testify against me and Abramovich. Now, before you start crying, sweetie, tell me what you can offer me.”  
  
“My silence for a European passport for me and my wife.”  
  
Eva let out a surprised chuckle.  
  
“What exactly did you do that it pissed Falcao off so much that you have to leave not just Colombia, but also the continent?”  
  
“I refused to kill my brother-in-law.”  
  
Eva sighed.  
  
“You know, I had a whole different plan to ensure your silence, it involved a dose of pancuronium injected in your neck, but fine.”  
  
“Fine?”  
  
“European passport for your silence about the Torres affair, and a testimony against Falcao. Take it or leave it.”  
  
There was a long silence on the other end.  
  
“I take it,” James said then.  
  
Eva hung up without a word and dialed Abramovich’s number. Abramovich answered almost immediately.  
  
“How does getting Falcao for good sound, boss?” Eva asked.  
  
“It sounds perfect.”  
  
“And solving the Ramos affair at the same time?”  
  
Abramovich made a sound that suggested both that he was delighted and that he was just enjoying his morning coffee.  
  
“What do you need?” he asked.  
  
Eva smiled for herself.  
  
“Just two passports.”  
  


***

  
The room was full of men in black suits – disciplinary commission, inspectors, supervisors... Sergio didn’t even know who was in charge of the inquiry, but as long as they were going to see into Mourinho's (and Abramovich’s) foul plans, he didn’t care.  
  
His plan to get Rodríguez to testify failed. He wasn’t really relying on it, but he did have a tiny hope. But whatever Abramovich could offer Rodríguez was tempting enough for him to disappear for good when Sergio wanted to contact him again.  
  
One of his biggest hopes now was Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. He was the piece that didn’t quite match the whole picture. The more he spoke, though, the more Sergio’s hope was dissolving into nothing.  
  
“So you insist that you were not aware of any... um... parallel plan?” the inspector asked, looking in his papers to avoid looking at Sergio.  
  
“Absolutely not,” Huntelaar answered in a resolute tone. “I had my instructions from Mr. Mourinho. I was to pick Torres up at the airport and proceed with the standard procedure. I was on my way to the airport when Mr. Mourinho informed me of Torres’ escape.”  
  
“All right,” the inspector nodded. “That will be all. Thank you, Mr. Huntelaar.”  
  
He took off his glasses and pinched his nose right where it ached.  
  
“We’ll adjourn the hearing until... March 16th. You will receive the official notice in time.”  
  
Sergio watched in disbelief as the men in black suits casually packed their documents in the leather briefcases and headed to the door, as if Sergio and the whole hearing was the biggest annoyance in their lives. Sergio turned to the door just in time to catch a glimpse of Huntelaar strolling towards the elevator. He ran after him like a mad dog and jumped in the second before the door closed.  
  
“You fucking bastard!” Sergio yelled and pushed him against the metal wall. “You fucking knew! You either knew it was never going to come to it, or you had orders to get rid of him yourself, but you fucking knew there was no witness protection program, it was all a game!”  
  
Huntelaar raised his hands and Sergio expected him to push him away, but instead Huntelaar grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer.  
  
“Look, I don’t know who you are or what you fucking want,” he hissed. “But I’m not going down because of it. I know on which side I am standing, and you should finally figure it out yourself.”  
  
It was too much, it was honestly too much, the acknowledgment, the confession that Sergio couldn’t prove because there was no one else in the elevator, the fact that Huntelaar was laughing in his face together with the whole Interpol. He just stood there even when the elevator stopped and Huntelaar walked out, adjusting his coat casually.  
  
It was in that moment when Sergio gave up on justice and started craving revenge.


	22. Twenty-two

**Four months later**  
  
Denmark was fucking cold. Sergio thought that when he stepped out of the plane in Copenhagen, he thought it on the train that took him to the middle of nowhere, he thought it in his shabby hotel room where the heating wasn‘t working properly. He thought it until he entered the building where Daniel Agger had agreed to meet him. Then he started to feel really hot.  
  
The room looked like an office of some small enterprise, and it most likely was. There were old armchairs with saggy upholstery, and a writing desk, behind which Daniel Agger was sitting like a parody of a manager.  
  
“The famous Sergio Ramos,” he smirked when Sergio walked in, accompanied by two of Agger’s bodyguards. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”  
  
Sergio knew that after Fernando's death, he had earned himself some fame, and not the good kind. But he didn’t care anymore.  
  
“I need help,” he said simply.  
  
“You, or the Interpol needs help?” Agger raised his brows. “Like they did last time?”  
  
“I don’t work for the Interpol anymore.”  
  
“I’d like to believe that,” Agger sighed. “But I wasn’t born yesterday. If we are to talk, it’s going to be just the two of us. No ears listening somewhere in London.”  
  
“I don’t have any bugs or whatever, if that’s what you mean.”  
  
“Show me, then,” Agger smirked and folded his arms.  
  
“I’m not going to do this talk in my boxers!” Sergio snapped.  
  
Agger reached in the drawer to his right and pulled out a gun. Sergio gulped. He had never shot a gun like that, simply because his wrist would snap if he did. “You’re going to have it in your boxers...” Agger drawled and cocked the gun. “Or not at all.”  
  


***

  
Iker Casillas was staring at his phone. He had actually stopped hoping that Sergio would ever call him, or pick up the phone when Iker called him, or answer one of the countless messages. Sergio called at the most unexpected moments and he was usually not very coherent.  
  
A day after the inquiry concluded that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Mourinho’s actions, Sergio handed in his notice. He disappeared without an explanation, calling Iker from a hidden number, asking him to tell everyone that according to Iker’s tests he was mentally unstable.  
  
Iker felt like he didn’t even have to lie too much.  
  
He didn’t hear from Sergio for weeks after that. Everyone started to slowly forget about him, Isco was delighted because he got Sergio’s position, Modrić was delighted because he could finally stop watching his back, and Illarramendi, who was about to be fired, was allowed to stay.  
  
Only Iker knew that Sergio’s departure was not the end. It was the beginning.  
  
He punched Sergio’s last number in the phone and listened to the dial tone until the operator told him that the person he was trying to reach was currently unavailable. Iker cursed, peeked out of the office to make sure that he was alone in the building, and then opened the number tracking program.  
  
He was sure that if Florentino found out about it, his and Sergio’s heads would be displayed in the boss’ office next to each other, but he had no choice.  
  


***

  
Sergio was nervous, not only because of the gigantic gun Agger kept playing with, but also because of his clothes that disappeared together with Agger’s bodyguards, Nicklas, a tall blonde, and a nervous youngster called Yussuf, who apparently found the situation very amusing and kept giggling all the way out of the office.  
  
“So you need some people dead,” Agger stated. “How do I know that this is not some kind of a trick? I already had a nice little snitch come to me, pretending he was a friend. I think you remember it as well as I do.”  
  
“He is the reason why I’m here,” Sergio said. “Because Abramovich and his people murdered him. I wouldn’t want to help them get you. On the contrary.”  
  
“Oh, that’s news to me!” Agger frowned. “So this thing he told me about you and him actually being a couple was not a part of the bullshit he was supposed to feed me?”  
  
“At first it was,” Sergio whispered. “Then things got... out of hand.”  
  
“Or something got  _in_  your hand, right?” Agger smirked. “Anyways, you want my help. What do I get in return? And before you start offering me money, believe me that however unlikely it is, I have enough.”  
  
“I have something better to offer you,” Sergio said, starting to feel more confident. They were getting to business now.  
  
Agger raised his brows. “I’m dying to know.”  
  
“Simon Kjaer.”  
  
Something passed across Agger’s face, only for a second, but when he looked back at Sergio, his eyes were somehow greener.  
  
“What about him?”  
  
“You used to be inseparable, some five years ago,” Sergio said nonchalantly. “Until a certain bank robbery in Copenhagen that didn’t go very well.”  
  
“So you’ve done your research,” Agger growled. “And?”  
  
“You fucked up, and he’s still counting the years in two-digit numbers,” Sergio stated. “I still have connexions, you know. And I know of someone who could perhaps make it one-digit.”  
  
Agger finally stopped playing with the gun and put it back in the drawer. He stayed silent for a while. “That’s not enough for what you want,” he said finally.  
  
In Sergio’s opinion, finding someone who’d be able to persuade the Danish authorities to shorten a sentence without a reason was almost impossible. If it wasn’t enough for Agger, then he didn’t know what could be.  
  
“Or maybe it’s too much,” Agger mused. “Whoever your friend is, we can’t charge him with that much work.”  
  
“What do you want, then?” Sergio asked warily.  
  
Agger gave him an enigmatic smile. “You pulled quite a stunt to get Torres out of prison back in England. I’d like to try such thing myself.”  
  
Sergio gasped. He knew that dealing with Agger wouldn’t be easy, that he would have to go far beyond his principles, but he didn’t know how far was too far.  
  
"That's impossible," he whispered.  
  
"It was possible for you," Agger retorted. “Or are you still on the good side of the law and think that I will help you for a simple promise of a case revision? Case revisions can happen without you asking for them.”  
  
Sergio took a deep breath. If he was to do this, he had to take the final leap. “Fine. I’ll help you. How can you help me?”  
  
“Well, you know someone who could help me, I know someone that could help you,” Agger smirked and leant closer to Sergio. “But I warn you, Ramos. If your  _someone_ fucks up, I’ll find you. And it won’t be pretty.”  
  
“I don’t want to trick you,” Sergio said. “I need help. I’ll do anything to get it.”  
  
“Fine,” Agger nodded and leant back in his chair. “You need a person that could get close to the people without them suspecting him. You also need someone who could cover the tracks so that nobody connects you with it. There is only one such person.”  
  
“Who is it?” Sergio asked.  
  
“Detective Jordan Henderson of the Merseyside Police.”  
  
Sergio’s eyes went wide. “You’re shitting me, Agger.”  
  
“No way,” Agger shook his head. “You heard about Brendan Rodgers, I suppose?”  
  
“Someone shot him in the parking lot in front of the police station,” Sergio nodded.  
  
“Not someone. Henderson did.”  
  
It took some time for Sergio to digest it. The whole thing he used to be a part of went deeper than he had ever imagined. Him and Fernando were only small parts of it. Small, entirely disposable parts. “I’ll need to go back to England, then, I suppose,” he sighed. He wasn’t really looking forward to it. Forgetting was easier when he was far away. But he couldn’t forget anyway.  
  
“You probably shouldn’t go there like this,” Agger chuckled. “Let’s get you your clothes back.”  
  


***

  
Iker almost jumped out when his phone rang. The call was from a hidden number and not that Iker was a coward or anything, but it was almost two in the morning and he was sitting alone in an empty building. All kinds of scenarios rushed through his mind before he finally took a deep breath and answered the phone.  
  
“Casillas.”  
  
“It’s me.”  
  
Iker slumped in his chair, relief washing over him momentarily, before he got really angry. “Where the hell are you?”  
  
“That’s not important,” Sergio said. “Because that’s not where I’ll be tomorrow anyway.”  
  
Iker wondered whether Sergio was drunk, high or mad.  
  
“Fine. Why are you calling me, then? It’s two am here. What if I were sleeping?”  
  
“But you weren’t,” Sergio said. “I bet you’re still at work. Listen, I need a favor.”  
  
“I'm warning you, I’m not doing anything illegal.”  
  
“No, it’s not illegal. I just need... does Krohn-Dehli still work at the International Relations office?”  
  
“He’s in Sevilla, man, he works at the Danish Consulate. Why?”  
  
“Oh, nothing. He just owes me one and I need it now. Thanks, Iker.”  
  
“Wait, if you don’t...” Iker started, but Sergio hung up before he could finish his threat.  
  
He was going to kill that man one day.  
  


***

  
The first night in his hotel room in Liverpool, Sergio wrote a list of people he wanted dead. He was mildly drunk while doing it, and in the morning he took a pen and reduced the list to a reasonable size.  
  
He crossed out Klaas-Jan Huntelaar first. Huntelaar was maybe a bastard, but he didn’t play any role in Fernando's murder. He kept his mouth shut to keep his job, but Sergio didn’t know how much he actually knew. He deserved a punch in the face, but not a bullet in the head.  
  
Luka Modrić was another one Sergio crossed out. He did play a role, he delivered Fernando to Rodríguez. But he wasn’t the one who planned it. He just followed the orders.  
  
Finally, after several minutes of hesitating, Sergio crossed out James Rodríguez. It was his gun and his finger on the trigger, but he was merely an instrument. Besides, he was protecting his family, and something was telling Sergio that Fernando wouldn’t blame him.  
  
He had three names left. Roman Abramovich, José Mourinho and Eva Carneiro. He wished he could pull the trigger himself, but ending up dead or in prison kind of defeated the purpose of vengeance. He sighed, folded the paper and walked out of the hotel room.  
  
He had an important meeting.


	23. Twenty-three

  
Sergio just got out of shower when there was a knock on the door. He frowned. He sure as hell wasn’t expecting anyone.

“Who is it?” he called.

“Room service.”

Sergio groaned and walked to the door. He opened it and almost jumped back into the room. There was Iker Casillas standing at his doorstep.

“Your newspaper, sir!” he growled and stuck a newspaper with a huge picture of Simon Kjaer right in Sergio’s face.

“What the fuck, Iker?” Sergio managed finally, closing the door. “How did you find me?”

“I tracked your phone,” Iker said matter-of-factly. “Now please tell me that you asking me about Krohn-Dehli only a couple weeks ago, and this prison transport incident are just a strange coincidence.”

Sergio sighed and pulled a T-shirt over his head. “I’m done being the keeper of the law,” he said. “The law is fucked up if you ask me.”

“Right,” Iker said and folded his arms. “So I take it as this is your doing.”

“I needed Agger’s help,” Sergio shrugged.

Iker’s eyes almost fell out of his head. “Daniel Agger’s?”

“Yeah. He knew this person that could help me. I had read Agger’s old file, I knew what I could offer him and he wouldn’t say no. If I could get help for getting out one of his minions...”

“Sergio, you didn’t read that file whole, did you?” Iker asked softly.

“No, it was in Danish,” Sergio shrugged. “Why?”

Iker sighed deeply. “Simon Kjaer was the fucking brain of their group. Agger is one of Kjaer’s minions, not vice versa. And now you presented him with the chance to get him out, which will surely make him Kjaer’s favorite minion.”

Sergio rubbed his eyes and looked at Iker like he wasn’t entirely sure that Iker was real. “Are you shitting me?” he asked, pulling the newspaper to him. “He looks like he just fell from a fucking incubator for baby angels or something.”

“This baby angel strangled one of the guards using the chain his hands were tied with yesterday,” Iker deadpanned. “So you better tell me now what was worth being responsible for it.”

***

  
Living a double life was something that Jordan Henderson mastered a long time ago. What started as a perfect way to have multiple girlfriends in high school now became a possibility to be at both sides of the law at the same time.

Jordan Henderson never questioned any principles – in his opinion, things like morale or conscience didn’t really exist, they were just made up by weak, incompetent people to excuse their life failures. When Sergio Ramos asked him to kill Roman Abramovich, Eva Carneiro and José Mourinho, he didn’t ask him why he wanted them dead. He asked him how much he would pay him.

Jordan decided to start with the easiest target. He figured that Abramovich would probably have a bodyguard and that his office and house would have the highest security, given his position. Carneiro was sneaky enough and she was a secret agent, so she wasn’t easy to find or get close to unless she was the one to initiate the contact. Mourinho, on the other hand, seemed to be no harder to get than a regular businessman.

Of course Jordan couldn’t watch his every step nor do the dirty work himself, given his other life, but he knew how to cope. Pretending he was a jealous woman, he hired a private detective to spy on Mourinho for him. Soon he had all he needed – he knew when Mourinho was leaving home, coming to his office, when he went to have lunch, when he left work, he knew the people he was in touch with, his favorite restaurants, the gas station he always stopped at, he had pictures of his car. He also accidentally found out about his secret lover that Mourinho’s wife had no idea about, but that was beside the point. He had all the information delivered to an anonymous P.O. Box, he paid in cash, letting the money be delivered with random things by a delivery company. All perfectly planned.

Finally he decided on the way he’d get rid of his first target. He always preferred things that wouldn’t raise any suspicion concerning his very person, that looked like someone else’s doing in the sense of having people immediately conclude who the culprit was. Explosives were perfect. He knew very well that given Mourinho’s reputation and latest cases, if his car blew up, people would immediately suspect Gerrard’s group. Not that he and Gerrard weren’t partners in crime, but he knew that it could do no harm to anyone. Gerrard’s group was on hiatus, its members scattered all around the world – Gerrard was in the States, Agger in Denmark, Suárez and Coates were hiding too well for him to know their location (if anyone knew, actually, it would mean that they were already dead). But it never hurt for people to think otherwise. A little assassination with a lot of noise was just what would do the job.

He dialed a number on his phone. It was practically untraceable, so he didn’t have to worry. The person at the other end answered almost immediately.

“Yeah?”

“How far are we, Ibe?” Jordan asked.

“All set up. The thing is down there, all ready.”

“Where are you?”

“In the garages.”

“Okay. Stay there and wait, he usually leaves around nine. The plan is, you follow him for a while, then take a turn before he enters the city centre, and set it off. There have to be people around. It has to look like a regular attack, not just a murder, okay?”

“Sure. I got it.”

“Fine. I’ll call you then.”

He ended the call, switched off the phone and opened a file. Boring detective work was awaiting him.

***

  
Simon Kjaer looked a lot different than how Daniel Agger remembered him. His hair was longer, his body covered in many more tattoos and he lost the last bits of chubbiness he had when Daniel last saw him. He didn’t lose the boyish look, but there was a change. If a few years ago he aimed a gun at someone, they would never believe he’d pull the trigger. Now they’d probably try to run.

“I almost thought you forgot about me,” he said, ruffling his wet hair, his eyes not leaving Daniel’s. Daniel felt them burning right into his mind, searching it for any sign of disloyalty.

“I never did,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn’t be too surprised. Heard you’ve made yourself some new friends in England. That you’ve made yourself quite some reputation. Tell me, how did it feel to be the boss?”

“I wasn’t the boss,” Daniel said calmly.

“Right. But you were the one they wouldn’t want to deal with, weren’t you?” Simon smirked. “You give that impression.”

“Unlike you,” Daniel chuckled. “I like to think that whoever wanted to mess with you in jail was in for a nasty surprise.”

Simon gave him a smile that was pure smug. “You bet,” he said and climbed on the bed Daniel was already settled on. “But you know what to expect, don’t you?”

Daniel didn’t have to answer. Instead, he just pushed himself up on his elbows and kissed Simon lazily. Getting back to what he knew was strangely comforting. Giving up the lead, taking off the mask was setting him free after all those years.

Simon pulled back and looked him right in the eyes. “We can be big together, you and I,” he whispered. “But you better not fuck up this time, or I swear it will be the last thing you’ll ever do.”

***

  
“Kill them? Sergio, have you gone completely mental?” Iker yelled, jumping up and cursing when he hit the coffee table with his knee.

“There’s nothing else that could be done. No other way to take revenge. You saw what happened when I tried to go the legal way. The commission found nothing, swept it under the carpet. Huntelaar laughed in my face and I could hear Mourinho’s laughter all the way from London.”

Iker sighed. “I know,” he said. “But... is risking your career, your life, really worth it? It won’t bring Torres back, it won’t clean his name, it means nothing for him now, Sergio, but it means everything for you. You are still alive. I mean, what they did was bad, but...”

“Don’t start with me on that, Iker!” Sergio growled. “I know I should be the better man. But I’m not. I can’t sleep at night, when I eat it all tastes the same, all I can think of is revenge. I won’t find my peace until these three are rotting under the ground... and neither will he.”

“All right,” Iker nodded. “Then... is there anything I can help you with?”

Sergio blinked. “I... Iker, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble. If Florentino finds out that you know where I am or what I’m up to, he’ll fire you.”

Iker shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. He already did.”

“Did what?”

“He fired me. Well, no, I resigned, but...”

“What are you even saying?” Sergio yelled. “You resigned? Why?”

“Because Florentino said that I’ll either tell them what I know about you and your story with Torres, or he will fire me. I went myself because... well, it looks a bit better in your records when you’re looking for a new job.”

Sergio just stared at him, unable to process it yet. “This world is getting more and more mad,” he said then. “And I don’t know what it will end at.”

***

  
David Luiz was polishing his coffee machine. He had all his work done, but leaving before Mourinho was out of question, so the last two or three hours he usually got quite bored. He had no idea what Mourinho did in his office at nine o’clock all alone, but he knew better than ask his boss about it.

He almost did a happy dance when Mourinho walked out with his leather case. “Leaving, sir?” he asked.

“No, I’m just practicing going out of the door!” Mourinho barked. “Stop polishing that thing and grab your things. I need to fax some files that I have at home, so I’ll give them to you and you’ll fax them from here.”

“Tonight?” Luiz almost yelled. It was already half past nine. “Why don’t you fax them from home?”

“Because my home line is not safe enough for that kind of stuff, and because my wife’s cat broke the fax machine, and now stop asking stupid questions or we’ll never get out of here!” Mourinho shouted. “I’ll take you in my car. You can take a taxi back.”

Luiz didn’t even have the courage to ask if Mourinho would pay for that taxi. He already knew the answer anyway.  
  


 


	24. Twenty-four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, you are not seeing things. This is indeed another chapter of this fic. I simply woke up this morning and I knew what I wanted to write, so I was like - screw it, this fic deserves a decent fate, aka completion. So I wrote another chapter. I hope you still remember this fic.

Jordan Henderson was just going through his e-mails when his phone rang. He had just switched it on to call Ibe later, and now it seemed like Ibe was calling him instead.  
  
“What?” he barked. “Is it done?”  
  
“No,” Ibe said hesitantly. “We might have a problem here.”  
  
“If there is a problem, it’s your problem, not mine!” Henderson retorted. “What’s up?”  
  
“Well, there are two of them,” Ibe said. “I thought he was supposed to be alone.”  
  
“Hell, he _was_ supposed to be alone! Who is the other one?”  
  
“No idea, some guy with crazy hair. Maybe that secretary you told me about?”  
  
Henderson cursed. If Mourinho decided to try gay sex, he couldn’t have chosen a worse moment.  
  
“So what now?” Ibe asked when Henderson had been silent for too long. “I mean, if we call it off, Mourinho’s car will just stand in front of his house with the bomb under it. But if I set it off...”  
  
“Follow them. If you get an opportunity to do it, do it. If not, call me later and we’ll figure something out.”  
  


* * *

  
Daniel looked in the dirty mirror as he splashed water in his face. His body was sore, a familiar pain he hasn’t felt for too long, but it was good.  
  
The door screeched and Simon appeared in the doorway, looking at Daniel with a contented smirk. “Missed that, didn’t you?” he asked. “I bet you did. It seemed like you fell out of the routine.”  
  
“I had a different routine in England,” Daniel smiled.  
  
“Oh, did you? What was it?”  
  
“Fucking out my anger,” Daniel said. “I developed something I called ‘the lesson’. Gerrard liked submitting some of his new subordinates to it.”  
  
Simon laughed and ran his hands over Daniel’s torso, exploring the tattoos he didn’t remember. “Call up the group,” he said then. “What remains, and the new members as well.”  
  
Daniel turned to him. “Don’t you want to wait...”  
  
“I waited for too long,” Simon said resolutely. “I want back what is mine.”  
  
Daniel felt his lips curl on their own volition. It’s been years since he felt like smiling. “All of it?” he asked.  
  
“Yeah,” Simon nodded and pushed him face first against the chipped bathroom tiles. “All of it.”  
  


* * *

  
José was driving smoothly, ignoring Luiz’ presence as much as it was possible with the secretary humming some samba rhythms, playing drums on his knees and “sir, you almost rolled that old lady over!”  
  
The past few months were mad for José. Technically speaking, he did his job, but the outcome wasn’t what they expected it to be, and somehow Abramovich acted like it was all José’s fault. Torres was dead, but it wasn’t José’s doing, not entirely – had Abramovich not employed his secret agent to make sure this part of the plan was ticked off, José was sure that moron Ramos would never kill him. The scenes he made afterward told him as much. He was happy when he could send Ramos back to Madrid so that Florentino could deal with him on his own. Florentino even promised him that next time, he’d sent José someone competent, if José promised that he wouldn’t traumatize them.  
  
But Gerrard’s group wasn’t in prison, and that was disappointing. They didn’t manage to get any of the members, and even though the group ceased to be active, probably lying low for some time, it was a bomb threatening to explode at any given moment. Brendan Rodgers apparently made some discovery, but someone shot him very conveniently the night before his appointment with Abramovich and José. Which left the mission impossible - to scatter a group that was already scattered - to José.  
  
“Sir, you almost ran over a dog!” Luiz screamed in the back seat (no way would José let him sit in the front).  
  
“Did you say _almost_?” José growled. “Maybe I should go back and finish the job!”  
  
Luiz fell silent after that.  
  


* * *

  
The members of the group looked like children on the first day of school when they walked inside the house. The older members tried to act all cool as Simon greeted them, but there was a hint of nervousness and guilt, as they did run away like scared chicken back then. The youngsters looked positively terrified, as if they were meeting the monster from the scary stories their mothers used to tell them when they misbehaved. Daniel stood at the wall, watching the scene and feeling strangely detached.  
  
“Daniel!” Simon’s voice tore him out of his lethargy.  
  
Daniel willed his eyes to focus. Simon was holding two guys around the shoulders, smirking mischievously. “Where did you find my long lost twin brothers?”  
  
Daniel had to laugh. One of the guys, Jannik, indeed looked a bit like Simon, probably due to the blonde longish hair he styled the same way as Simon used to in the past. The other one, Viktor, looked a bit like Simon when Daniel first met him. In other words, like a kid that couldn’t count to five. “Are you going to use them as your doppelgängers to confuse the police?” Daniel asked.  
  
“I might,” Simon nodded, leaving whether he meant it as a joke or if he was being serious a mystery. Either way, the two objects of his interest looked quite worried.  
  
Daniel knew perfectly well that there was already something on Simon’s mind. He had years to plan things, and he was a little impatient now. But Daniel would always prefer risking his life for him than for Gerrard’s group. It was helping a great deal with the guilt he felt.  
  
“Fine, back to business,” Simon smiled and looked at the group gathered around him. He had his throne back.  
  


* * *

  
“Sir, are you going to pay me extras?”  
  
José felt like biting in the leather padded wheel. “What extras, Luiz?”  
  
“I mean, overtime,” Luiz explained. “I was supposed to go home two hours ago, and instead you kept me in the office and now we’re driving to the nowhere you live, and then I’ll have to go all the way back and fax the documents.”  
  
“So what? I'll pay for the taxi.”  
  
“But I wanted to watch Gilmore Girls and I have a pint of ice cream in my fridge!”  
  
José couldn’t believe his ears. Not because Luiz wanted money, hell, who didn’t want money, but he wanted them because he was missing a stupid series meant for _women_ and because he wanted to have ice cream.  
  
“I have my rights, you know,” Luiz added and José could see him pout in the rear-view mirror.  
  
“So you have rights!” José yelled. “I have my rights as well! I have the right to have a secretary that doesn’t get on my nerves all the fucking time, doesn’t play mad Brazilian songs all days and can make decent coffee!”  
  
That touched a raw nerve. Luiz’ eyes filled with tears, but it was actually pure rage. “I can make _excellent_ coffee!” he yelled. “Just you are an ignorant and an insensitive bastard!”  
  
José hit the brakes so fast it almost activated the airbags. “Get the fuck out!” he roared. “I don’t want to see you in my office anymore! I’ll send you your damn coffee and your CDs by FedEx in the morning!”  
  
“Fine!” Luiz snapped and got out of the car.  
  
José took a deep breath and stepped on the gas again.

 

* * *

  
  
Jordon Ibe let the car drive twenty more meters before he set the bomb off. Then he casually turned the corner and left the scene, leaving a completely stunned David Luiz stand on the side of the road, looking at the remains of his boss’ car in horror.  
  


* * *

  
  
Sergio was staring into space in his hotel room, trying to ignore Iker’s condemning glances. It wasn’t like Iker pitied Mourinho, after all, if Mourinho didn’t leave Madrid, Iker might have ordered his murder himself, but this was different. Iker thought that this was too much for Sergio to handle. Sergio didn’t share his opinion, but he might have just stopped caring altogether.  
  
Henderson promised that nobody would suspect Sergio, and Sergio trusted him. As much as a corrupted cop could be trusted. He murdered his own boss and let a dozen of his subordinates be blown up into pieces without showing any remorse. Sergio would show no remorse either.  
  
Anytime he started doubting his plans, he thought of Fernando. Thought of his smile and the jokes that annoyed him all the time, of his lips and his body which he memorized to the point that he could still feel it under his fingers, although he was touching only thin air. He thought of Fernando's hair and the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes, and the freckles. He thought of the sadness that overtook Fernando’s voice when he talked about his wife and children, of the badly hidden hope that he would see them again one day. Then he thought of him in the morgue.  
  
He would show no remorse. Nothing he wanted to do would be worse than what they did.  
  
His phone rang. Sergio looked at Iker first, then picked it up. Jordan Henderson’s number.  
  
“Yes?” Sergio said.  
  
“One down, two to go,” Henderson said simply and hung up.


	25. Twenty-five

Roman Abramovich couldn’t believe his ears when he got the phone call. José Mourinho’s car exploded in the middle of the road, on the outskirts of London. Exploded just like that. No warning. Roman didn’t like things that didn’t come with a warning. In his opinion, no car should explode without his permission. Leave alone a car driven by his subordinate.  
  
If it meant that Gerrard’s group was still there, and that the war resumed, he was in deep trouble. Because Mourinho was meant to lead that war. And finding a new leader after this would be damn tough. Not many people felt like being blown up on their way from work.  
  
He drank a double espresso laced with vodka to keep himself awake, and set to question the only witness that had things to say about this.  
  
David Luiz was still in a state of shock. When Roman tried to ask him about the explosion, he kept talking about strange and unimportant things such as coffee and dogs and FedEx. Finally, Roman decided to send him home.  
  
He spent a while looking at the dark street under his windows, and then picked up the phone. It rang thrice before Eva Carneiro’s voice sounded from the speaker.  
  
“Boss?”  
  
“You have to come here,” Roman said. “Mourinho’s dead.”  
  
*  
  
In Iker’s opinion, Sergio should shave. In Iker’s opinion, Sergio should do a lot of things, and refrain from doing a lot of them as well, but the problem was that Sergio didn’t give a damn about what Iker thought anymore.  
  
José Mourinho was dead, and not that Iker would mourn him, but the thought of Sergio ordering his murder was unsettling. But Sergio didn’t seem to realize it. He looked if not content, then strangely detached. When he wasn’t hypnotizing his phone, he would sit at his laptop and stare at the screen for hours. Iker had the feeling that he was researching something, but asking him about it meant setting off a timed bomb, so he refrained from that.  
  
Instead of trying to talk Sergio out of his plan, which was already in progress anyway and Iker couldn’t stop it no matter how hard he tried, he set to minimize the damage. He made a few phone calls in the rare moments when Sergio went to sleep or shower, and set up a plan of his own.  
  
“I’m leaving,” he announced half to himself, because Sergio was hunched over his laptop and it was likely he wasn’t listening to him at all.  
  
“What?” Sergio looked up, to Iker’s surprise looking a bit taken aback. “Where?”  
  
Iker laughed. “Sergio, that Florentino fired me doesn’t mean that my new job will be to be your baby sitter. I don’t think you need me that much, anyway. You don’t even listen to what I say.”  
  
“I do,” Sergio objected. “But I can’t... I can’t let it go. He deserves justice.”  
  
“He doesn’t care anymore, Sergio,” Iker said quietly. “And he probably wouldn’t want you to ruin your life avenging him. Becoming a criminal yourself isn’t a good way to clean someone’s name and bring them justice.”  
  
Sergio didn’t answer. He didn’t speak until Iker picked up his bag and walked out of the room. But his silence was all that Iker needed. It meant that his words didn’t fall on deaf ears.  
  
*  
  
Years ago, when Daniel was still young and careless, careless enough to obey a teenager determined to rob the biggest bank in Copenhagen, he wouldn’t question any plan that Simon Kjaer came up with. Now he was older, and not quite sure that Simon has learned his lesson, because his plan looked just like those Daniel remembered.  
  
“Turkey?” Daniel frowned. “Why Turkey?”  
  
“Because everything of importance is going on in Turkey now,” Simon smiled. “Your England is dead, and running off to Mexico is old as the world. But Turkey has everything. So many possibilities to start business.”  
  
Daniel didn’t object. While he was agonizing over his failure in Liverpool, desperately trying to start over and realizing that he couldn’t ever make it, Simon was plotting his comeback. There was nothing he could add to it. He could just express his opinion, and even that meant walking on thin ice.  
  
“But first, you need to get out of Denmark,” he pointed out. “And that won’t be easy.”  
  
“It will be easier than you think,” Simon said calmly.  
  
The rest of their group was huddled together at the other side of the room, working on the guns they acquired the previous night. Simon arranged everything; they only had to pick them up. Daniel marveled at how easy it still was for him, after all those years. But being a foot soldier was strangely relieving for Daniel. Unlike Steven, Simon never asked his opinion.  
  
“You, Nicklas,” Simon drew lazily, beckoning one of the guys. “Come here.”  
  
Nicklas abandoned his work and stalked closer, eyeing Simon warily.  
  
“I have a task for you,” Simon said. “Quite important. And mind you, if you fuck it up, I’ll blow your brains out.”  
  
Nicklas gulped. “Sure. What am I to do?”  
  
Simon smirked and handed him a pair of scissors. “Cut my hair.”  
  
*  
  
“So Mourinho is dead,” Eva Carneiro said without any particular sadness in her voice. “I wonder who could want his death.”  
  
“Well, don’t we all?” Abramovich raised his brows.  
  
“But I am wondering who would want to get rid of someone so incompetent,” Eva smirked. “Admit it, Mourinho was never a real threat for anyone, maybe except his subordinates. He couldn’t even handle his secretary. The only thing people had to fear because of Mourinho was being fired.”  
  
“I’ll still have to appoint someone new,” Abramovich frowned. “And if this was Gerrard’s group...”  
  
“Gerrard’s group is done,” Eva interrupted him. “Suárez and Coates are somewhere in South America, hiding not as much from us as they are from the Mexicans, because they somehow managed to shoot the Mexican warlord’s brain out of his cauliflower head. Which is kind of surprising, because I doubted someone like Coates even knew how to shoot a gun. Agger has disappeared, but considering the recent events in Denmark, we can conclude that he is there and luckily not our problem anymore. Let the Danish police handle him and Kjaer, if they can. As for Gerrard…”  
  
“Yes, I’m listening,” Abramovich folded his arms.  
  
“We don’t know anything about him, but I don’t think he’s behind Mourinho’s death. Why blow him up now, when we’re not even actively pursuing Gerrard’s group anymore?”  
  
“Well, then who is left, except for Mourinho’s angry subordinates that he managed to fire?”  
  
“Exactly,” Carneiro smiled. “Who else is there? Nobody. And which of Mourinho’s former employees is angry enough to want his death?”  
  
Abramovich shrugged. He didn’t care about people who hated him, so why should he care about people who hated Mourinho?  
  
“Isn’t there someone who… kind of… had a problem with Mourinho, especially concerning case Torres?” Carneiro raised her brows.  
  
“You mean…”  
  
Carneiro nodded. “Sergio Ramos.”  
  
*  
  
Jordan Henderson hated it when his work collided when his second life. Like when he expected a phone call, but was still stuck in his office.  
  
“Boss?” a voice sounded from the door and Jordan almost jumped up.  
  
“Damn you, Lallana,” he sighed. “Learn to knock.”  
  
“Sorry… we finally got the files for the Can case…” Adam Lallana said and handed him a pile of papers.  
  
“Thanks,” Jordan said.  
  
“I thought…” Lallana said and bit on his lower lip. “Maybe we could discuss it tonight… like… dinner or…”  
  
Jordan folded his arms and looked at him. “Are you trying to ask me out on a date or do you really want to work?”  
  
Lallana blushed.  
  
“Fine,” Jordan nodded. “Because I’ve had enough today. I want to eat in peace. Dinner yes, but the files will stay here.”  
  
Lallana nodded and left the office. In that very moment, Jordan’s other phone beeped. A message from Jordon Ibe. Jordan read it and smiled contentedly.  
  
He knew all that he needed to know. Eva Carneiro was back in town.  
  
*  
  
Since Iker’s left, for the first time in months, Sergio stopped hypnotizing his phone, waiting for Henderson to call and tell him that either Carneiro or Abramovich were dead. Suddenly he didn’t even care that much anymore.  
  
He might not have always listened to what Iker told him, but his last words really made it through the barrier he had built around him.  
  
 _Becoming a criminal yourself isn’t a good way to clean someone’s name and bring them justice._  
  
When he thought about it, he could see that Fernando really wouldn’t have wanted this. He wouldn’t care about Mourinho, Carneiro and Abramovich. All he ever wanted was for his family to know who he really was, that he wasn’t a monster. The hope that he might one day see them again and perhaps explain to them what he couldn’t explain before, why he did what he did – that hope was what kept him going.  
  
And that was the one thing Sergio could still do for him. He could find his family and explain everything to them, to the best of his ability, tell them that Fernando did it to protect them. That he died to protect them, because Sergio is quite sure that Fernando knew very well that he was not likely to get out of Mourinho’s plan alive, but he still went with it.  
  
The worst thing about leaving his work, as he soon found out, was losing the access to all databases. What would take a few clicks before now became work for days. First, he needed to break into the British database and find out what happened with Fernando's wife and children after he was arrested. Luckily, hiring Henderson apparently came with bonuses.  
  
As he was reading through the file, he found himself frowning more and more. Apparently, Fernando’s wife asked for witness protection program, after she testified against him at court. Sergio wasn’t really that great with laws, but he was almost certain that she could have chosen not to testify against her spouse. What is even stranger, she was granted the program and left England following the trial. Which made it all even more difficult for Sergio, who now had to break into a way more protected database.  
  
Finally, he managed to find who was in charge of Olalla Domínguez’ case, a certain Jamie Redknapp. He almost picked up the phone to call David Luiz and ask him to find out where this Redknapp worked or to get him his phone number, but then he noticed that Redknapp was replaced. He frowned when he saw the date. It was quite recent, a few months after Fernando's death. About the time of the trial that determined that the Interpol did nothing wrong.  
  
Sergio scrolled down to see who was assigned to the case after Redknapp, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up when he read the name.  
  
Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.


End file.
